Whatever She's Got
by karhall
Summary: A rural United States AU story inspired by the lyrics of David Nail's song, "Whatever She's Got." The story of the tumultuous relationship between one hapless young man and his unpredictable long-time friend, Anna. — [OC x Anna] — Cover image: "Anna: Modern AU" by Mossmallow
1. Chapter 1

"Class, may I have your attention for a moment?" I turned my head lazily in the direction of Ms. O'Connell's voice, prying my attention reluctantly from the sketches in my notebook. I was getting better at drawing Goku, not that anyone really cared. In fact, so few people cared I often questioned why I even drew in the first place. I had three years, starting last month, to practice my drawing in order to make it into the art club at the high school. I needed people to start caring.

Ms. O'Connell gestured at the door, and over the tops of heads that were seated in front of me I saw a small clump of auburn toddle into the room. "Now, class; I know y'all have been looking forward to spending this exciting new middle school experience together," she said sweetly, patting the red hair that stood beside her, "so it makes me very excited to introduce to you a brand new classmate!" There was a murmur through the class, and I leaned over to peer through the rows of desks and get a better look at this new student.

It was a tiny girl with long, braided red hair and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. She was incredibly skinny; her clothes hung off her limbs like empty bags. She was smiling with her big, teal-blue eyes, and her mouth was stretched wide in a toothy grin. "Hi!" Her voice was just as small as she was, a flat city accent just like me. "My name's Anna; I just moved here!"

Ms. O'Connell laughed. "Very good, sweetheart," she said, "I'm sure everybody will be very happy to make you feel right at home; isn't that right, class?" Everyone but me muttered a weak response. I was dumbfounded. What on Earth were the chances of this? Ms. O'Connell patted the redheaded girl on the back and gave her a nudge towards the desks. "G'on, Anna, have a seat. I think there's one down the back next to Micah."

"Back there?" The little girl scooted quickly down the row of desks towards me. I started to panic a bit, realizing suddenly that the seat next to me where I had put my binders was indeed agonizingly open. Clumsily, I tried to collect my belongings from the seat, only succeeding in dumping the papers all over the floor. _This is impossible. I can't believe I remember her, we were only kids. There's no way she will, I'm not that memorable. How in the world did she end up here, of all places_. I flopped out of my seat and onto the ground, scrambling frantically to try and regain my things as I heard giggles ring out from my classmates.

"Uh-oh!" The girl's cheery voice surprised me. It sounded sincere, and when her hand appeared alongside my own and began to scoop up papers I nearly froze in surprise. "Lemme help you with that!"

"Thanks," I muttered, clawing at a handful of doodle-ridden worksheets.

The girl lifted one of the vocab tests I had dropped and glanced over it quickly. "Hey…" She looked at me. "Did you…?"

"What? Did I what?" My words were snappier than I had intended. I snatched the test from her hand.

"Micah Abressian?" She put a hand on her cheek. "It's me, Anna! Do you remember? You used to live in the apartment across from us!"

_She…remembered_? I nodded timidly. "Y-yea. We moved out here a long time ago. How did you remember me?"

"You thought I'd forget?" She opened her arms and wrapped me in a bone-crushing hug. "How could I forget one of my best friends?"

I grunted. "Best friends?"

"Aw, how wonderful," Ms. O'Connell cooed, "already making friends." Anna jerked back suddenly, like she had forgotten we were in a classroom. "As much as it warms my heart, I'm still going to have to ask y'all to find your seats; we have some lessons to get through."

"Sorry," Anna said quietly, slithering quickly into her seat. I finished scooping up my things and stuffed them into the wire basket beneath my chair. As I seated myself and picked up my pencil, Anna grabbed my arm gently. She was leaning eagerly towards me, a whisper already on her lips. "Let's sit together at lunch," she said quietly. "I brought some Snack Packs; you can have one if you want."

I swallowed heavily. "S-sure." Nobody else was going to sit with me; it might be nice to have someone to eat lunch with for once.

Anna patted me on the shoulder. "Just save me the chocolate one."

She could have the chocolate one; I liked vanilla anyways.

* * *

><p>I exited the locker room slowly, painfully. I had taken my time in leaving, wanting to avoid the crowded shower and loud upperclassmen. I pushed my still-damp hair off my forehead, pushed my glasses up my nose, and re-adjusted my backpack. Every guy in Aarondale played football, even if they didn't want to. I'd been playing since we moved here from the city, but I didn't really like it. I was "okay," I mean, I made the varsity team this year as a freshman, but it was already obvious I was just going to be riding the bench hard. My coaches had told me I had a good brain for playing corner, my body just wasn't at the same caliber. I was pretty skinny and lanky, and my nearsightedness was limiting unless I put in my contacts. I wanted to keep drawing; that was where I felt most of my joy. Something about creating a scene just the way I liked it was empowering; nothing in the world made me feel better. Nothing accept…<p>

"There you are, slowpoke!" I looked up to see Anna leaning against a locker in the hall. She had her backpack slung over one shoulder lazily, and she had her arms folded across her chest. She was smiling wide as I shuffled my way towards her. "I was wondering what was taking you so long!"

I looked up and down the hallway. "What are you still doing here; it's nearly five-thirty," I asked.

Anna flipped her backpack off her shoulder and undid one of the zippers. "Well," she said, "I've decided to take up my own after-school sport." She raised a tiny purple-and-green tank top out of her bag and held it in front of my face. She smirked, "I made the cheerleading squad, Micah; don't you remember I tried out?"

I nodded. "Oh, yeah, that's right. Sorry, I've just been so busy with football."

"Don't worry, it's alright." She put the cheerleading uniform away. "Even if I hadn't, though," she continued, "I'd still have to hang around; my ride doesn't leave until about now."

"Anna?" Another voice sounded from down the hall.

Anna looked over my shoulder. "Speaking of," she said. I followed her gaze, my eyes landing on a girl I recognized as she approached from one of the nearby classrooms. It was Anna's older sister, Elsa; tall, blonde, thin, and notoriously shy. I'd spent a lot of time at Anna's godparents' house since the two girls had moved in three years ago, so Elsa and I weren't strangers to one another. The thing was that the older girl was a junior this year, practically an adult. She was small and frail, even when compared to me, but knowing that she was nearly eighteen was still intimidating.

Anna waved as Elsa approached. "Hi, sis!" She took a few steps and hugged her sister quickly. "Practice is over; I'm ready to go when you are!"

Elsa brushed a loose hair out of her face. She was always well dressed and meticulously well put together, only adding to the quiet imposition she held over me. "Okay," she said in her soft, cool voice, "then we can get going." She pulled out her phone and checked it. "He'll be here in a minute or two."

"Hey, Elsa," I said quickly, "how are you?"

Her eyes snapped up to me almost as an afterthought, and I saw a flash of uncomfortableness light up her pupils. She crossed her arms and scratched her nose. "Oh, hi, Micah," Elsa said shortly. "I'm alright; how was practice?"

I shrugged. "It was fine. I'm just tired, is all." Elsa nodded. _Aaand the conversation grinds to a halt, just like usual_. I saw Anna shake her head quickly. It didn't bother me; I knew there was only one person that Elsa talked to for more than two seconds. And, just as his name entered my head, a huge hand clapped down on my shoulder.

"What's happening, Rookie?" His country twang felt out of place amongst the three city speakers that were already present. That was my name the team had given me; "Rookie." All because of the one time I forgot to bring my helmet out to the practice field during preseason camp. Coach had called it a "rookie mistake," and now everyone called me that, even him. We all called _him_ "Cap," though I think I did it for a different reason than most. He'd been a team captain for two seasons running, so that was, I think, why most people called him that. The reason _I_ called him "Cap" was because he looked like Chris Evans; big, muscular, home-grown-American-hero-looking guy with silky light-brown hair and patriotically blue eyes. What better name for him than "Cap?"—just like the Marvel hero God had based him off of.

"Hey, Cap," I said, flinching under the force of his grip, "nothing much; I'm just on my way home."

He thumped me on the back once and moved to Elsa's side, slipping his arm around her shoulder. "Good stuff, hoss," he said, rubbing his girlfriend's shoulder, "I was just talking to Coach about you."

I pretended to be excited. "Oh, really?"

Cap nodded. "You did good work today, buddy," he said, "Coach was happy with it. You're looking a mighty fine raw talent."

"Cool," I replied, "thanks for telling me."

Elsa took a step down the hall. "C'mon, sweetie," she whispered, "I want to go."

"All right, all right," Cap said, "I'm coming." He pointed a finger at me. "You have a ride, Rookie? I can give you one if you need."

I waved a hand. "No, thanks, my folks are swinging by soon."

Cap gave a thumbs-up. "Sounds like a plan, bud. See you tomorrow."

Anna scampered over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Dylan? I think I'm going to go over to Micah's, so you can just take Elsa home and I'll get myself back later."

"You are?" I sounded more surprised than I had intended.

Anna turned to look at me. "Yea, we should do homework together!"

"I-I dunno, my parents—"

"I'll buy us pizza; they don't need to worry about food or whatever." She clapped her hands together and squeezed her eyes shut. "_Please_, Micah? I promise I won't bite!"

I could see out of the corner of my eye that Cap was holding in a smile. I shook my head. "Yea, all right, come on over."

Anna gave me a hug, no favors done for my aching body. "Yay! Thanks, Micah!"

I squirmed. "Just feel lucky that my family didn't have plans tonight," I said as she let me go.

Cap's voice was full of repressed laughter. "You two try not to study too hard, now." He waved and took Elsa's hand, walking away towards the upperclassmen parking lot. Anna and I headed in the opposite direction, to the pickup lane.

As I climbed into the back seat of my mom's car, I prepared myself for the inevitable. "Oh, Anna," came Mom's voice from the front seat, "I wasn't expecting _you_ today!"

"I know, Mrs. A, it was sort of impulsive."

Mom turned the engine over and shifted the gear to drive. "I guess I'll have to make some extra dinner, then."

The two of them went on about whether or not Anna should feel the need to buy any food if she were to be staying for the afternoon, but I let my attention drift out the window. It wasn't that I _didn't_ want Anna to come over; that couldn't have been further from the truth. I was doing _that thing_ again, is what it was. I could feel the tips of my fingers itching as my vision begged to be put to paper. It would have been so much easier if I could have taken some time right away to start sketching, but with Anna here I would have to sit on it until she left, and they always got more desperate the longer I waited. I had the folder with them all inside hidden at the bottom of one of my desk drawers, and I hated taking it out to add a new one to it. It wasn't even like it was dirty or anything—I'd never do anything like that—but I felt shameful in doing it all the same.

I could see it in my head, as clear as day: Anna in an Aarondale cheer outfit, pom-poms in hand, being held aloft by another cheerleader on the sideline of a football game. The colors were vivid, the lines clean and precise. I could draw it; I _needed_ to draw it. But it would have to wait until Anna left.

Mom started asking me about practice, so I let my mind ease off on the image I was dying to create. It was important for me to draw it as soon as possible, but I didn't want Anna to see me do it.

I didn't want her to know that she was my favorite subject for portraits.

I didn't want her to know how deeply I was in love with her.


	2. Chapter 2

Mom pulled the car into the driveway and I quickly slipped out of the back seat. Anna had a smart comment for me as I scurried to the door; "Where's the fire, speedy?"

"I have to pick up a bit," I said, "I didn't know you were coming over." I swung open the side door and kicked off my shoes. "Just give me a minute." I thudded up the stairs to my bedroom, where I opened the door to find a grisly scene of dirty laundry and sketchpads thrown everywhere imaginable. Clumsily, I began scraping the clothes into piles away from the furniture, freeing up space on my bed and futon for Anna to sit.

I heard her footsteps approach from down the hall just as I finished compressing a clump of laundry into my closet. She tossed her backpack on the futon and flopped onto my bed. "You don't have to clean you room for me," she said, "I'm not offended by the fact that you _live_ in here."

I began bunching up sketchbooks and loose drawings and slipping them into empty spaces on my bookshelf. "If I'm having someone over, I'm cleaning my room," I said, "I'd rather my crap not be all over the place."

Anna rolled over onto her stomach, kicking her feet up. "Whatever," she said, "I won't stop you." I fought another urge that was begging me to immortalize this moment; a sketch of her lying there on her stomach, chin resting on her knuckles, feet kicking lazily in the air as her long, red braids swayed back and forth from the momentum of her legs. I blinked rapidly, feeling the back of my neck burn red as I noticed I was staring. "Micah, can you toss me my backpack?" I looked over to where she had left it.

"Really? You're, like, a foot away from it."

She grinned. "But I'm _exhausted_, Micah! I don't know if I'll make it!" She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, feigning a swoon. She peered slyly out of the corner of her eye.

I smirked, shaking my head. "Oh, how tragic." I grabbed on to one of the shoulder straps and lobbed the bag onto the bed.

Anna wriggled over to it and undid one of the pockets. "My hero," she exaggerated. I chuckled to myself. She pulled a notebook out from the depths of the bag and started spreading worksheets out over my comforter. "Frigging algebra, man," she huffed, "Mr. Howard really piled it on tonight."

I slid my backpack over to my desk and opened it up, unpacking a textbook and some notepaper. "I heard that Howard was a bit of a pack mule for problem sets," I said. "Lucky for me, _I_ have Yancey."

"Shut _up_," Anna said, smacking her hand down on my bedspread. "How did you get Yancey? She's, like, practically retired!"

I shrugged. "The stars aligned, buddy, I don't know what to tell you." I patted my textbook a couple times. "Problem set four on page twenty-six, and 'have a fun afternoon.'" I smiled. "I don't know if I'll be able to do that second assignment, it sounds pretty tough."

Anna tossed a pen at me. "You suck sometimes, you know that?"

"Hey, hey; what do they say about counting chickens?" I threw the pen back. "I _do_ have maybe _four_ _years_ worth of reading to do for history, remember? _You_ didn't have football practice yesterday afternoon, so you probably had plenty of time to get it done."

Anna laughed. "That's right! Ha! You're not going to sleep tonight!"

I shook my head, sliding my desk chair out from the table. "Thanks for the support, Anna; I can always count on you."

She gave me a sarcastic two-finger salute. "I aim to please, 'Sir!'" I laughed as I sat down and flipped open my algebra book.

The room was quiet for a while while the two of us plugged away at our work. Mom popped in for a moment to let us know that the pizzas was here, and we went downstairs for a minute to grab a box and something to drink. As we started carrying the pizza and liter of Coke upstairs, we were reminded by my dear Mother that soda was _very _difficult to wash out of bedsheets; Anna was guilty of spilling many things in all the times she'd come over. Good-natured banter aside, she was actually a much more careful person than her reputation gave her credit for. She put her cup of soda on the nightstand, even sliding a napkin underneath as a coaster.

We took our time in eating, since neither of us wanted to get back to work. I asked her if she was excited to be on the cheerleading squad. She shrugged, taking a bite of pizza. "I would say so; yes." She bobbled her head from side to side. "I think the senior girls might not like me, but it's whatever."

I raised an eyebrow. "Not like you? What are you talking about, they hardly know you."

"Yea, but they know Elsa." She herself raised an eyebrow, shrugging again. "My sister isn't exactly one to go out of her way to make friends."

I stuffed the butt of a slice of crust into my cheek. "That's stupid," I said. "They're stupid."

"They're people." She flicked oregano flakes off her fingers and onto her plate. "I'll just have to work extra hard to try and be their friend." I captured another portrait in my brain, filing it away to draw later. It wasn't exactly in that moment, but sometimes I added my own touch to the portraits I drew; Anna sitting lazily, one leg tucked underneath her body, a slice of pizza hanging from her mouth. It was a very Japanese-looking image—my years of practice drawing Goku had heavily influenced my current style—and I started to wonder if I was actually coming up with it from my own mind. It was _too_ Japanese-looking, more authentic than anything I could conjure up on my own. Connecting the dots between _manga_ and pizza, I realized that I was actually thinking of a C.C. fan art I had seen on the web, and I quickly scrapped the idea. _Although, I bet Anna would adore a Cheese-kun plush_.

Anna pushed her plate aside and rolled back onto her stomach, picking up her pencil and getting back to work on one of her algebra worksheets. I grabbed another slice of pizza from the box and slid my history textbook off the shelf. I decided I would read two chapters before rewarding myself with a little break, and I flipped to the assigned readings and got underway. I read slowly, as I was a pretty slow reader anyway, but I also because I was distracted by the fact that Anna was here. Half of my mind was occupied with reading the textbook, the other half was on edge, ready to respond to whatever she might say. Slowly, surely, I managed to make it through the first two chapters on the Romans or something and reached over to the side of my desk where my guitar sat. "Hey," I said quietly. Anna looked up from her work. "Do you mind if I noodle around?"

She shook her head. "As long as you don't start slamming out power chords and blow me out the window." She returned her attention to her work. I moved over to my futon and started tuning up.

I had been learning the guitar since I got a Fender for my eight birthday, so I had a bit of experience. Music was an art form, and I liked art, so playing guitar was just about as fun for me as drawing. Anna liked singing, too, which may have had something to do with my persistence in practicing. I finished tuning and slumped back in the futon, taking the pick out from between my teeth. I pushed down on a D-chord and strummed, shifting to B-minor, then G-major. _A little bit of Billy Joel to keep everything calm._ I liked calm music. Well, at least, I liked calm music in _English_. I listed mostly to Japanese music, an interest stemming from my regular _anime_ viewings. But the English music I liked was stuff like Billy Joel, John Mayer, Ed Sheeran. Sometimes I would get adventurous and listen to some laid-back country, but I wasn't a huge fan. The only song I really liked was "I Don't Dance," but I hadn't learned to play it on guitar yet.

I mouthed the lyrics as my fingers strummed out the song. _I just want someone/ That I can talk to/ I'll want you just the way you are_. Anna was very much someone I could talk to. We'd known each other since we were babies; my family had lived across the hall from hers in a high rise apartment building in the city. My dad had gotten a job managing a plantation out in Aarondale when I was five, and we moved out here. It wasn't until sixth grade that Anna re-appeared in my class, having moved to her godparents' home in Aarondale with her sister following the tragic death of her parents. She'd made sure we picked up right where we'd left off, instantly trying to continue forging our bond from the moment she realized we were in the same class. That first lunch together had been painful for me, having become so used to sitting alone and keeping to myself. Anna's bubbly personality had thrown me for a loop, and her questions upon questions about what I'd done since I'd moved out here put me in a panicked state of mind. When she had mentioned how much she liked the doodles she saw on the papers I'd spilled, though, everything started to calm down. She thought it was cool that I liked art, and she told me she wished that she had talent like mine. That opened me up almost instantly.

Day after day, she and I ate lunch together. We got more familiar with one another's lives, what had happened since I'd moved, and what sorts of things we were interested in. Anna liked singing, of course, and she seemed to be a big fan of planning things to do. One day, she showed me a notebook of all the places she wanted to visit before she died some day. Rio, Milan, St. Petersburg, Hong Kong, and dozens more. I remember being awestruck that an eleven-year-old could already have so much she wanted from life, despite not knowing much about the world she lived in. I, on the other hand, didn't have much of a plan for the future. I liked art, I liked playing guitar, and I liked keeping to myself. There wasn't much more to who I was than that. I suppose in the present I could add that I loved Anna, but I didn't want to tell _her_ that. And, back then, I didn't know how much she would come to mean to me. She was the most faithful person I knew, the most loving and caring friend I had; the _only_ friend I had. The people I networked with online on my forums weren't even close to being considered "friends" when compared to Anna, and I would say those faceless usernames would be more "friends" than most of my classmates. Anna was that girl the country singers talk about in their lyrics, the one that stops the clock and makes their head spin; or, at least to me she was.

I prepped for the last chorus, shifting back to D and strumming down. "_I don't want clever—_" My eyes leaped up from the fretboard, seeing Anna swaying back and forth. She scrunched up her face and belted out the next word, "—_conversation!_" I smiled, leaning forward and moving on to the next chord. Anna sang out the next line too; "_I never want to work that hard!_"

"_Oo-oo-ooo-oo-ooo_!" I came in on harmony, letting Anna take charge of the melody. I moved my hand and strummed again. "_I just want someone! That I can talk to! I'll want you _just_ the _waaay _you _aaaaare_!_"

I wiggled my finger to hold out the last note, and Anna rolled over on the bed and flailed her arms in the air. "Ahh, I love that song!" She looked over at me through upside-down eyes. "I'm all done with this stupid work."

I raised an eyebrow, picking at a couple strings. "Really? You did _all_ those problem sets?"

She laughed. "No," she said, letting her arms flop onto the bed, "I never said I finished, I said I was done."

I cranked out a G-chord and let it hold for a few seconds. "Those two mean the same thing!"

"Says who?"

"The English language."

"Phoo, _English_." She rubbed her eyes. "I should be allowed to speak my own language."

I strummed one more chord and stood up from the futon. "Oh yea? And what would that be?"

"I dunno," she flipped her papers into the air, "Anna-ese or something. Why should I be the one to name it?"

"Because it's _your _language, you chump!" I tossed a pen at her. She laughed and threw it back.

There was a knock at my door, and I turned to see Mom standing in the doorframe. She smiled. "I hate to break up this musical study extravaganza," she said, wiggling her fingers emphatically—_God, Mom, you're such a dork—_, "but it's getting late. I can drive you home, Anna, if you don't mind packing up."

Both Anna and I looked at the clock, and saw that it was nearly nine. "Sure, Mrs. A," Anna said, "I'll be down in a minute." Mom smiled and slipped away from the door. Anna rolled her eyes. "Ugh," she said, looking at me.

"What?"

"That was so dorky." She put up her hands and wiggled her fingers, just like my mom had. "'Musical study _extravaganza_.'"

I burst out laughing. "Oh, God, I was thinking the same thing!"

Anna did the hands again, and I laughed even harder. She started laughing too, and the both of us had a good long chuckle. As the humor died down, Anna wiped her eyes and started fussing with the papers on my bed. "Huhhh," she sighed, "I guess I should get going."

I cleared my throat. "Yea, Mom'll drive you home like usual."

Anna blew a raspberry. "Can you just adopt me so I can stay here?"

"What?"

Her eyes widened. "What?" We stared at each other for a minute. "What, what is it?"

I blinked. "Did you…say something?"

She shook her head quickly. "Nope," she said. She stuffed her notebook into her bag. "Bye!" She jumped off the bed and scurried through the door, turning quickly to face me. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

Before I could say another word, she flew down the stairs. I walked slowly to the door, barely catching the top of her red head as it slipped out the door. I stumbled backwards into my room and collapsed onto the bed. _Did I hear her right?_ There wasn't much else she _could_ have said. I shook my head. "What…" I couldn't take it any more; I had to draw.

I threw open one of the drawers of my desk, grabbing my good sketchpad and pencils and stalking to my door before slamming it shut. I jumped onto my bed and propped the pad up on my knees. I touched the pencil to my tongue, tasting the chalky residue of the graphite, and made my first, crisp sketch line.

_Quickly; you _know_ Mom's going to be back before you know it_.

* * *

><p>A soft knock at my door drew my attention away from my history textbook. I turned my chair to face the door. "Yeah, come in," I said.<p>

The handle rattled, and the door swung open. "Micah?" Mom stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind her.

I scratched my head. "Hey, Mom. Did Anna get home okay?"

Mom nodded. "Nothing unusual in the slightest." She walked over to the desk, wrapping her arms around my head and giving me a small hug. "You should go to bed, honey; you have school in the morning."

"Yeah," I said, "I'm just finishing this chapter then I'll go to bed."

"M'kay, sweetie." She bend down and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. "Anna said she had fun."

"Really?" I felt myself smile a bit. "Cool."

Mom let go of my head and walked back to the door. "I'm glad the two of you get along so well," she said. "I still can't believe that the two of you remember each other from all those years ago."

I sighed. "Me neither," I said. Mom waved as she closed the door. "'Night, Mom."

I shut my textbook. I had been waiting for Mom to come in, because I knew she would eventually; I had a couple finishing touches to my drawing. Moving the book to the floor, I looked again at the paper I had been working on:

Anna sat on the floor, leaning against a wall. She had one hand on her knee, the other on her face, brushing hair back from her eyes. She had a smile on her face, but a weak one; the kind of smile you put up to keep people from worrying about you—a smile I knew all too well. Her eyes were downcast, looking at her feet. All around her grew flowers, and although I hadn't colored them in yet, I knew they were going to be brilliant shades of red, yellow, and blue. As the flowers grew further from her, though, they became more withered, less vibrant. Over her head hung a raincloud, pouring water down on top of her, helping the flowers closest to her grow.

Underneath it all, I had written one short sentence:

_What was she trying to say?_


	3. Chapter 3

I took a deep breath. _Just show him the drawings, Micah._ I nervously handed over my small portfolio. The upperclassman—Jake, he said his name was—took it out of my hands and began to flip through it. I took a step back and crossed my arms, pushing my glasses up my nose.

"Rookie!" Cap's voice sounded from down the hallway. I looked, and saw his head standing tall above the rest of the bustle of the after-school student traffic. He raised his arm and pointed down at me. "Don't be late, right?"

"Right," I called back, "I'll be right there, Cap!"

Jake looked up from my drawings. "Football?"

I nodded. "Yea, I need to head down to practice soon; sorry I couldn't meet with you at a better time."

Jake waved a hand at me. "It's cool, dude, all I needed was to look at your portfolio. I could have done it over lunch or something, too."

"Oh…" I felt sort of let down as Jake thumbed through my portfolio at rapid speed.

After another second or two, he shut the folder and handed it back to me. "It's looking good, Micah," he said, "we'd love to have you join the club."

Any feelings of doubt or unhappiness I had just felt melted away. "R-really?" I opened the portfolio to a random page, looking down at the landscape portrait I had sketched from my bedroom window. "Thank you so much! That's awesome!"

Jake gave me a thumbs-up. "Have fun at practice, dude!" He turned and started to walk down the hall.

"Hey!" I took a few steps and fell into stride with him. "Um, don't we…like…don't we have meetings or something? I need to know if I should tell coach I'm—"

Jake laughed, and I stopped walking. "Meetings, that's a good one!" He looked over his shoulder, stopping when he saw that I was no longer following him. "Hold on, you're not kidding, are you."

"Why would I be…kidding?"

He looked up and down the hall, scoffing quietly before stalking back towards me. "Look, Micah," he said quietly, "I know they told you that clubs are required to meet once a week, but, come on…" He gestured around the hallway, already mostly empty as students were headed home. "Nobody meets once a week. Hell, a non-athletic club is lucky to meet once a _month_."

"Really?"

Jake smiled. "Don't worry, dude! It'll still be on your college applications! And, we still compete in shows and stuff at the end of the year, so you'll still get a chance to win prizes and whatever!" He clapped me on the shoulder. "Have fun at practice!" He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving me standing alone in the hallway, lost for words.

I had been stressing over this day for three years. _Three years_. 'Lucky to meet once a month?' I picked up one foot, flopping it forward exhaustedly. It wasn't fair. I took another step. How could that be the case? Another step. I couldn't have been delusional, something must have changed.

For most people, I'm sure this would be good news; free extracurriculars on your transcript? I bet it would have sounded like a dream come true. But I wasn't most people. Most people hadn't been dreaming of this day since they first picked up a pencil. Most people hadn't lost sleep worrying that their drawings wouldn't be good enough. Most people hadn't been hoping that joining the art club would give them an excuse to quit football.

Most people weren't as gullible as I apparently was.

"Micah!" Anna's voice drifted down the hallway towards me. "Hey! Don't you have practice?"

I looked up, seeing her standing in a group of people I didn't recognize. They were all staring straight at me, most of them confused or disgusted looking. "Yeah, yeah," I said quickly, my voice creaking. "I was on the way." It was strange to _talk_ to her again; I hadn't _seen_ her since the last time she'd been over. Well, we'd had history class a few times, but that doesn't totally count. We'd only texted, and I was slightly thankful for that; it had saved me from having to awkwardly dance around the task of pretending that I _didn't_ hear what she had said on her way out that night. I cleared my throat and finished my thought; "I just had a thing to take care of first."

Anna's eyes widened, and she smiled. "Ooh! Are you talking about the art club thing?" I saw a few smirks crawl across the faces of the other students. I gripped my portfolio tight to my chest. Anna tipped her head slightly. "How'd it go?"

"I…um…well, I got in," I said timidly, "so, good?"

"That's awesome!" Anna clapped her hands together and wriggled free of the crowd. She swooped over to me and wrapped me in a hug, and I could feel my face start burning under the prying eyes of the gathered peoples. "I know how much you wanted to join the club; I'm so happy for you!"

I laughed weak. "Thanks," I fidgeted, breaking free of her arms. "I gotta run to practice," I said, "I'll…um—"

"No, no, go to practice! I'm sorry to have kept you!" Anna gave me a little push down the hall. "How about call me later? Okay?" She waved. "Talk to you tonight!"

I waved and stumbled away. Through the stagnant air, it was hard not to hear the murmur that floated up behind me and wormed its way into my head. "You seriously asked that loser to—"

The sentence was cut off by a sharp thump, like the speaker had been smacked on the shoulder. A second voice floated through the air. "You moron, he's barely three feet away!"

"You think I care?"

The rest of the conversation faded away into the background, but I'd heard all I wanted to hear. I wasn't surprised by what they said―I knew I wasn't the most popular dude―but it still stung. And Anna was with them. I hadn't heard her voice at all when the other students had started talking behind my back. I shook my head. _She was about to say something, I'm sure; that other kid just talked over her._ It was always in the back of my mind that Anna was too "cool" for me. She had lots of friends from all across the spectrum of schoolgoers, while I had one: her. She was pretty enough for the other pretty girls to want to keep her around, since that seemed to be the way things worked in the girl world. Then the pretty girls got the attention of the sporty, athletic guys, and since those were the guys that ran the campus, Anna and her girl friends were queens of the halls by association. And I―a glasses-wearing, _anime_-watching, jumpy, introverted, awkward, skinny shut-in―was, in comparison, a nobody. I never liked to think about it, but this was most likely the time that she would probably realize she could do better than me.

I slipped into the locker room, praying nobody would notice me as I slithered to my locker to get ready for practice. I shouldn't have been so hopeful. "Hey, Rookie!" One of the upperclassmen, a fullback, gave me a push in the shoulder, sending me reeling into the lockers. "What took you so long? I need my spikes brushed before can put them on!"

I swallowed, regaining my feet slowly and fixing my glasses. "I h-ha-ad a m-meeting—"

"The Hell is this?" He ripped the portfolio out of my hands and opened it roughly. His eyes barely stayed on the page for a second before he tossed it over his shoulder. "You really thought that nerd shit was more important than the team?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "Y'know, I should really help you learn what matters and what doesn't."

"Booker! What's the issue?" The fullback's head snapped around, his eyes staring straight into the "KNIGHTS" logo stretched across Cap's broad chest.

"Oh, hey, Cap," Booker said, pointing at me, "Rookie here was taking his sweet time cleaning my spikes; I may be late to practice, the rate he's goin'."

Cap reached out and inserted himself between Booker and me, giving the other boy a light shove. "_Rookie,_ here, told me _yesterday_ he was going to be running a little behind, so I told Coach. _You_, on the other hand, didn't seem fit to tell _anyone_ you weren't going to be able to dress yourself in time." I watched Booker's eyebrows rise, then fall, then furrow. Cap gave him another light push. "G'on 'n get your spikes yourself; nobody ever forced us to clean spikes our first season, you won't be forcing anyone to clean yours."

Booker shook his head. "Whatever you say, Cap." He slunk away from the larger boy practically with his tail between his legs.

Cap stepped over to where my portfolio had landed on the floor and bent over to pick it up. He turned, looking over the pages slowly. He stood for a few minutes, thumbing through the drawings and sketches, and I hurriedly put on my pads and gear. I was lacing up my spikes when he shut the binder and held it out towards me. "Did you draw all this, Rookie?"

I looked up at him, confused slightly. I removed my glasses and put them in my locker. "Yeah," I said hesitantly, "why?"

Cap shrugged—rather, he shrugged as best he could with his pads on. "I'm just asking; they're really good. Did you show them to Jake from the art club? You'd definitely get in if you want to try that out."

I took the binder from him slowly. "Yeah, I did," I said, "that was the meeting I just had."

Cap smiled his wide, pearly smile. "Awesome, dude! Congratulations! Did you tell Anna yet?"

I practically threw the binder into my locker; my arm lost all motor control at the mention of Anna's name. "I-I, uh, I, um, Anna, uh…" I shut my locker hurriedly and grabbed my helmet off the top shelf. "Why, um, why do you ask?" _Why not just tattoo "I'm in love with her" on your face? It'd probably be less obvious._

Cap shook his head. "Just a question, man," he said kindly, "I was just thinking she'd probably be excited for you."

"She…she is." I played with the chinstrap fasteners on my helmet.

Another toothy smile. "Good to hear," Cap said. He opened his mouth to speak again, but it was drowned out by earsplitting metallic crashes, whooping shouts, and thunderous clapping. It was the junior class, they were responsible for getting everyone pumped up before practices and games. Cap looked over his shoulder, where the players were beginning to thump into one another and crash their helmets together and bang on lockers. "C'mon, Rookie, let's go!" He put on his helmet and smacked his hands against the golden "A" on either side.

As Cap spun away and started slamming his massive frame into other similarly massive players, I sat in bewilderment in front of my locker. Of all the people to stick up for me, why him? Was it because I'm friends with his girlfriend's sister, or did he actually care? I slipped on my helmet not seconds before somebody tried to smack me in the head. As I followed the boisterous crowd out of the locker room and down to the practice field, my mind was full of over-analyzation.

_And_ I still had to call Anna later. That didn't put my mind any more at ease.

* * *

><p>*<em>ringring-ringring<em>*

*_ringring-ringring_*

*_ringring-ri—_*

"Hello?"

_Breathe._ "Hey, Anna."

"Micah! Hi!"

…

"So…how was practice?"

_You were supposed to say something sooner, idiot_. "Oh, uh, it was good. I did a lot of hitting drills, so I'm feeling a little beat up."

"Bummer; I can't imagine throwing myself around like that."

"You kind of get used to it after a while, I guess. I bet you'd be good at it." _Oh my God, I couldn't have aimed any closer to my own foot._

"Hehe, maybe. I bet I'd look tough in all those pads."

_She's making her 'grr' face, isn't she._ "How'd your afternoon go?"

"It was so _boring_, Micah! Ugh, I just did homework for _hours_!" *_thump_* "I'm so _bored_!"

"Hah, well at least I called, right? That's something to do."

"No kidding."

…

"Micah?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing tomorrow? Want to come over and do homework?"

"Isn't tomorrow Friday?"

"No, tomorrow's Thursday; you've got your days mixed up."

"Oh, shoot. Sorry, I forgot what today was."

"That's okay! I do that all the time too!"

_She's smiling; I can hear it._ "Yea, I'd be happy to come over tomorrow after practice."

"Good! I have plans on Friday, and we're both going to be busy on Saturday, so tomorr—"

"Plans? With who?"

"Oh, just some people. They invited me out to a thing, and I wanted to go."

'_People,' huh. The popular kids._ "I see."

"Why, did you have something you wanted to do?"

"Huh? Oh, no, not particularly." _I mean, aside from spend every waking moment with you before you wise up and stop hanging out with me._ "I was just curious."

"Oh, okay!"

…

_Don't make her start the conversation again._ "So I, uh, I made it into the art club."

"Yea, you mentioned that! Congrats again!"

"Thanks. I was sort of worried I wouldn't get in."

"That's ridiculous, of _course_ you were going to get in; you're an awesome artist!"

"Thanks. I'm glad you think so."

"I still haven't seen your final portfolio, you know."

"I thought you did?"

"Nope! You said you didn't want to show it to me because it wasn't done."

_Oh, yeah, that lie._ "I'll bring it with me tomorrow, then. You can look all you want." _I'll have to take that portrait of you out of it, first._

"Yay! I can't wait!"

…

"Okay, then, I'll see you tomorrow, Micah!"

"Huh?"

"Well, you just got back from practice, right? You probably have a bunch of homework to do."

"If by 'a bunch' you mean whatever Yancey gave out, then yes."

"Ohh, you _suck_!"

"Haha, I don't know what to tell you, Anna."

"Have fun doing your stupid homework."

"Love you too." _Funny, I could have sworn breathing a second ago._

"Haha! You know I was kidding, Micah."

_Phew, risky move worked out fine. Now I'm free to keep on sulking._ "I know, I know. I'm just playing on the banter."

"Well, don't play too much or you won't get your homework done!"

…

"Bye, Micah; have a good night! I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Bye, Anna."

*_click_*

"Uuuuuuuhoooooooh God…:

*_click_*


	4. Chapter 4

Begrudgingly, I slammed my locker shut. _What a waste of time_, I thought. An hour of assembly and all that happened was getting talked at about not drinking if you're underage. This was never going to be an issue for me; who in their right mind would invite me to a party? And even if the message did apply to other people who _did_ go to parties, it wasn't like they were ever going to listen to what that crabby lady had been saying. Next weekend there was going to be another party whether or not the assembly had been held, and someone was going to get their older brother or cousin or uncle to buy a bunch of alcohol, and everyone was going to go and trash someone's house while the parents are away, and they would all wake up on Sunday morning next to someone disappointing with an agonizing headache and a thousand regrets. Taking an hour of class time to blow hot air into a furnace was definitely not something I felt was worthwhile.

I turned to walk to history class, pushing my glasses up my nose. Elsa was standing at her locker further down the hall in my path, but I wasn't going to bother saying hello. She was busy talking to Cap, anyways. "Please, Elsa," he said softly, leaning nonchalantly against the wall, "it's the semifinal. You _have_ to come."

"Dylan, I'm not that into football," the blonde said, putting a few binders away and taking a textbook into her bag. "I don't really want to go, I'm sorry."

Cap reached his hand out and ran it up and down Elsa's arm. "Sweetie, c'mon." He smiled. "One game. You said before the last game that you'd come if we won." Elsa shut her locker heavily. Cap stood upright. "One game."

"Okay, I'll come," she said, putting her bag over her shoulder. She shut her locker and started walking away. "But I'm not sitting with Kelsey, she makes me anxious."

Cap's grin was enormous. "You don't have to sit with no-one, Elsa." She stood up on her toes and kissed him as she walked past. Once his lips were free, Cap thanked her once more. "I'm up for a record, too; I've gotta impress you now." Elsa walked down the hall, rolling her eyes. "I'll see you for lunch, girly!"

Elsa waved shyly and turned around. She passed by a group of girls at another locker and quickened her pace; I immediately saw why. The group of girls shot looks at her so sour they could have pickled the air. The hostility was like a punch in the gut, and I was even a good ten yards away. I could hardly imagine what Elsa must have felt like.

"Rookie!" Cap boomed into my line of sight and fell into stride with me. "Heading to class, big man?"

I nodded. "I've got history," I said boringly, "just walking over there."

"Nice stuff, bud," Cap grinned, "do you have it with Foreman? Or are you in Anna's class?"

I tripped over my own tongue. "No, I'm in Anna's class. I was on my way to meet her and we were going to go together."

"That's cool, man. It must be great having her in that class with you; you don't have to worry about not knowing anyone. It's always weird when you have to do group projects and stuff with random kids."

"Totally," I replied. _It's also nice to know that at least once a day she remembers who I am._

"Dylan?" Cap spun around at the sound of his name. He and I had made it over to the group of girls that had given Elsa death stares. They were all locked on to Cap, paying less than no attention to me; for all I knew, I had just turned invisible.

"Tish," Cap said, "hey! What's up?"

The tallest of the girls, presumedly the one who had gotten Cap's attention, pushed some of her bleached-blonde hair out of her face so it wouldn't stick to her spray-on tan. "You texted me earlier? Said y'had something to ask?" The girls gathered around her wriggled excitedly.

Cap clapped his hands together. "Right! I totally forgot! I needed to ask a favor of you!" He took his backpack off and unzipped the pouch. "I missed class the other day, and I was wondering if you'd let me copy your notes. I know we have a quiz coming up soon, and Elsa's really on my case about passing."

Tish's smile curled into a grimace for less than a millisecond before she bobbled her head—her heavily-styled hair rustled stiffly—and reached back into her locker. "Of course, Dylan, it's no trouble at all!" The sweetness in her voice was almost venomous. She handed Cap an orange notebook from her locker, which he slipped into his backpack. "Just don't take too long with it now, y'hear? I've gotta study for that test myself."

"Don't you worry, Tish; I'll have it back to you after lunch." Cap closed the zipper and shouldered his bag. "Thank you so much, Tish."

Tish giggled. "Of course," she said. Cap waved goodbye and took off down the hall, leaving me standing by myself next to a pack of upperclassmen girls. _Well, I guess it's probably too much for him to be unnervingly friendly _all_ the time_. Once Cap was out of earshot, the group of girls let out a collective groan; my mind was filled with the image of cats with their hackles raised.

"Girl, you _so_ do not deserve him if he's going to treat you like that," came a nasally voice from somewhere in the group.

"You're just too good for him, he can't see what it is you have," added a second voice.

"You're a hundred times prettier than that basic city bitch he's climbing all over," spat a third. _Wow,_ I thought, _that invisibility thing may not be too far off._ "Did you see what she was wearing today? Did she get dressed by a blind homeless person?"

Trish made a small "aww" sound, and wrapped her arms around the girls closest to her. "Thanks, girls," she said, "but I'll be okay." She looked down the hallway after Cap. "He'll figure it out soon enough."

"He'd better," one of the girls hissed, "before Psycho makes him all weird."

"Honestly, of all the perfectly good girls here, he picks _her_? It's disgusting."

"Has she even said two words since she got here? How does he even know what he's sticking his dick in?"

"Maybe he does; because you know what they say: the quiet ones get louder when you take their clothes off."

"_You shut up!_" Everyone's head, including mine, snapped towards the angry shout that had exploded into the hallway. Anna was standing not three feet away, her fingers white-knuckle clenching the binder clutched to her chest. Her face was stern, her eyebrows furrowed, and her teeth bared. "You shut your mouth about my sister!"

Tish scoffed, stepping past her posse and standing toe-to-toe with Anna. "Excuse me, bitch?" The older girl peered down her nose at the little redhead. "Were we talking to you?"

Anna didn't give an inch. "Dylan would _never_ go out with you if he heard you talk like that! You apologize right now!"

Tish laughed, throwing her head back and laughing up to the ceiling. Behind her, the group of girls began to snicker too. She regained her breath, looking back down at Anna. "Listen to me, you little twat," she began, "I'll say whatever I damn well want to say about whoever I damn well want to say it about. You have no right to tell me to do _anything_, you hear?"

"Nobody talks about my sister like that!"

"That weird-o bitch is your older sister? No wonder you're such an ugly, flat-chested little bitch! Your momma must have hit the two of you with the ugly switch when you were little; no human being alive could end up looking like you otherwise."

I knew the insults about her appearance were going to be about as hurtful as water is to a duck, but Anna's lip quivered for a different reason. "Leave my parents out of this," she said, weaker than before.

"Why should I? They aren't dead, are they?" Anna's ears turned red. "And even if they were, it'd probably be for the better; they wouldn't have to see what a social disgrace their slutty daughter is, and how stupidly hopeless her kid sister has become."

Anna turned and started running down the hall. "_I hope you die!_" Her words were garbled by an onslaught of tears, but I could hear the fiery hatred that was spat into them. I watched her scamper off, away from the room we had history in. I felt my stomach turn sour. That wasn't right. That wasn't the way she should be. Tish and her friends had gathered around one another again, muttering this and that about Anna and Elsa as the last of the footfalls faded away. They were smiling, happy about it.

_You're all disgusting_.

"Ex_cuse_ me?" It was suddenly a lot more crowded than it had been a few seconds ago. Tish and all her friends had encircled me, hands on their hips, glaring daggers at me. "Mind running that by us again?"

It was in that moment I realized I had thought that out loud.

Tish squinted, curling her lip in disdain. "Who even are you, string bean? Did you get lost on the way to the comic book store?"

One of her friends piped up from the back. "If you have something on your mind, please say it; we're _so_ interested."

I looked at all the fake-tan faces and horribly colored hair-dos that were around me, the push-up bras and too-tight jeans reminders that I was _not_ in any position to be speaking to them. It would probably be best for me to pass it off like they had misheard, or even fake that I had said nothing. Flattery would get me nowhere; they'd already proven that they don't really care if I'm alive or dead, but I'd opened my stupid mouth and given them an opportunity to flay me as sport. There was one last thing that came to mind to do, though, and something in my gut told me to do it.

"You don't know anything about her, or her sister; it's gross of you to say stuff like that."

There was a collective laugh from the group of girls. Tish crossed her arms. "Are you a freshman too, four-eyes? Anyone with two drops of common sense would know that I say whatever the hell I want."

I felt my throat start to close up, but I was pushed on by the still-fresh memory of Anna running away. "Just because nobody's stopped you before doesn't mean you're right. Saying stuff about her family was really too far. You need to apologize."

Tish patted me on the shoulder. "When pigs fly, squirt." She pointed down the hallway. "Now run along after your little girlfriend, make sure she knows how brave you were to stick up for her just now, and maybe she'll finally let you kiss her on the cheek."

I clenched my fist. "You're a sad human being." Tish rolled her eyes and turned her back. Her friends made throaty grunts of disgust and followed suit. They buzzed away like a single entity, but I found it hard to move; my knees had locked up from the anxiety that was coursing through my veins. _Funny, I hadn't noticed that before._

With Tish gone, there was only one thing that was on my mind now. I turned away from history class and chased after Anna. The bell rang for the start of class as I jogged past a small corridor between two sets of lockers, catching a glimpse of red hair out of the corner of my eye. I slid to a stop, backtracking to find Anna standing up against the wall, eyes closed and head bowed.

I stepped quietly into the corridor. "Hey." She looked up at me. I cleared my throat. "I, uh…Are you—"

She stepped off the wall and thudded her forehead into my chest, pressing hard into me and causing me to stumble backwards slightly. My heart leaped into my throat when I realized I had grabbed hold of her arms to hold myself steady; I felt like I wasn't worthy to touch her unless she said so. Almost instantly, my hands sprung up into the air. Anna drew in a deep breath, huffing loudly into my shirt; she was still crying. My hands hovered inches away from her back. _Do it, stupid. Man up and be her friend_. Slowly, I lowered my palms onto her back.

She was warm to the touch, and the green cardigan she was wearing felt really soft. I could feel her ribs moving as she pushed out sob after sob. Hesitantly, I moved one hand up and down her back, using the other to gently pat her shoulder. "Hey," I said again, less than a whisper. I felt like I was holding a butterfly, and I was afraid to crush it. "Anna?"

"Why didn't you _say_ something?"

My silence must not have been an adequate response, because Anna picked her head up from my chest and looked me square in the face. "You were standing right there," she said, "and you just let her say that to me. _And_ what she was saying about Elsa! You just let it happen!"

"Anna, I—"

"I know you aren't _good_ at that sort of thing, but I thought maybe you'd at least _try_!"

What was I supposed to do? I was still holding her, I could still feel her arms pressed against me. Hell, her big, watery, teal blue eyes were less than eight inches away from the frames of my glasses. What on _earth_ was I supposed to do, right then and there? _The truth would be a good place to start, probably_.

"I'm sorry," I said, looking at the freckles on her cheeks. I let my arms fall from her back and I stepped away timidly, praying my heart would stop racing. "I…I didn't think of anything to say until after you left."

Anna took a step towards me, pushing up against me again. "Well, did you say it, at least?" Her lower lip quivered, and I found it hard to form words again.

"Y-yeah, I did." I couldn't look her in the face. "I did. I tried." I shook my head. "I don't like it when you're sad, and what she said was terrible." I stepped back again. "I'm sorry it wasn't good enough; I should have tried harder."

"No, Micah," Anna said. She wiped her eyes and stepped towards me again. This time, though, _she_ wrapped her arms around _me_. She sighed shakily. "I trust that you did your best." She shook her head, rubbing against my chest. "I'm just…"

I smirked joylessly. "I know," I said. _You're just upset_. At Tish, and at me. Anna was always touchy when it came to the subject of her parents, and in all the years since she'd re-appeared in my life, I'd never really known why that was the case. Well, aside from the fact that they had died, obviously. I had never been sure how to ask about it, so I'd sort of just arrived at the conclusion that I would live without knowing and have to be careful when talking about her home here in Aarondale and her relationship with her sister. Because I really did hate to see her upset; she was so much prettier when she was happy and her normal self. I should have spoken up sooner.

Anna laughed quietly. "Of course you know," she said matter-of-factly, "you know better than anyone." She let go of me and wiped her eyes again. Clearing her throat, she wrapped her hands around her binder again. "Come on, we're already late." She slipped past me and started walking towards history class.

I took a moment and let the past few minutes sink in. _I know better than anyone, huh?_ I followed her down the hallway.

_If I know better than anyone, then the whole world is done for._


	5. Chapter 5

_**[7:38AM] Anna:**__ Good luck tonight! :) I'll do my best to keep you all going!_

_**[8:30AM] Me:**__ Haha, thanks! _

_**[8:30AM] Me:**__ I just saw this, fyi. Just woke up._

_**[8:30AM] Anna:**__ hehe it's fine! :) I always have my phone with me_

_**[8:32AM] Me:**__ I can't really say the same, haha._

_**[8:33AM] Anna: **__I knooooow you're so bad at textinggggg_

_**[8:33AM] Me: **__Yea rub it in a little more, why don't you?_

_**[8:33AM] Anna: **__;) I'm kiddingg!_

_**[8:34AM] Me: **__The pain is still real, Anna. The pain is still real._

_**[8:34AM] Anna: **__Oh, shush_

_**[8:34AM] Anna:**__ And don't joke about getting hurt, mister! :( You have a VERY important game to play tonight!_

_**[8:36AM] Me:**__ Define play…_

_**[8:37AM] Anna: **__What do you mean?_

_**[8:37AM] Me: **__There's no way I'm not going to be riding the pine again._

_**[8:37AM] Anna:**__ Don't say that! :( You're still on the team!_

_**[8:39AM] Me: **__Yea, I guess._

_**[8:40AM] Anna: **__So cheer up, grumpypants! :3_

_**[8:41AM] Me: **__Isn't that your job? Haha_

_**[8:41AM] Anna: **__Technicalities - a cheerleader's worst nightmare_

_**[8:41AM] Anna:**__ It's a good thing I'll be cheering for you, though! That'll make it so much better._

—

_**[9:15AM] Anna: **__I'm rooting for you, Micah! :) You're the best ever! Go kick some Techu-LAME butt! :D_

—

_**[12:43PM] Anna: **__I have to go get ready now, so this is my last text before the game_

_**[12:45PM] Anna: **__Don't worry too much about not playing, Micah. You're on the varsity team as a freshman, and that means something. There are just older guys that have more time on the field and more experience, that doesn't mean you're not a good player. I'm going to cheer extra loud for you, okay? :) Be listening for me! You're an important part of the team, don't ever forget that._

_**[12:45PM] Anna: **__I'll see you later. :) 3_

* * *

><p>Man, she wasn't kidding about cheering extra loud. "<em>Come on, Knights! Kick their teeth in!<em>" Not what I would have gone with, but I wasn't the one with the pom poms. I didn't even have my helmet on. I was standing in a crowd of defensive linemen with no hope of seeing what was going on on the field, my helmet resting between my feet and my gloved hands tucked deep into my pads.

There was a roar from the crowd, which I took to mean we had just gotten a first down. Then our kicker pushed past me in a rush to get to the field, and it hit me that we just scored again. That was two possessions in a row that had given us points, and that meant we were leading by two now. Six minutes to keep Techuwain from getting any points, and Aarondale High would be on its way to its first ever State Championship. Whoop-dee-doo; good thing I had any say in whether or not we could do it. _Sometimes I make myself upset with how dry my sarcasm about this whole football thing is._

The defensive linemen pulled on their helmets and lumbered onto the field, meaning the kickoff had already happened and it was time to try and shut Techuwain down. I picked up my helmet and meandered my way towards the sideline, hoping to catch at least one play of this game to have something to talk to Mom about later. She had a double shift at the hospital, meaning she wouldn't be home until tomorrow morning, so obviously she was going to want to know how the game went. And I hadn't exactly been the most talkative son these past few days anyways; it might be nice to interact like a family for once.

The Techuwain quarterback hard-counted and snapped, handing the ball off to the halfback. The kid took off on an off-tackle run, all six feet of his power back frame barreling through the gap between Cap and Tyreese, our starting corner. Tyreese was locked up with the Techuwain wide-out, but with a drop of his shoulder and two quick steps he slipped under his block and set to pop the halfback square in the chest. The hit was massive, and both runner and tackler were sent sprawling in opposite directions. The whole crowd groaned in sympathy; even the cheerleaders stopped squawking for a moment. The loudspeaker boomed out: "_Tackle made by number twenty-three, Tyreese Goodman_."

Tyreese didn't move. Once people realized this, a hush started to fall over the crowd. Coach and the trainer jogged onto the field to check on him, and people started murmuring. I could barely hear it over the pounding of my own heart in my ears. Tyreese never got injured. If anything happened to Tyreese, _I_ was next in line. That had always been the plan, but it had never come to be. If he wasn't ready for the next snap, _I_ would be taking it. Coach shook his head. _Oh…no…_

Tyreese was hauled to his feet and made his way gingerly to the sidelines. "Abressian!?" I nearly dropped my helmet. Coach strode over to me and tucked his clipboard under his arm. "Why's your helmet off? The injury timeout's almost over!"

"Coach?" I fumbled with my chinstrap as I squeezed my head into the padded casing.

"Goodman's out! You're taking snaps until he's back up walking again!" I snapped on my chinstrap as Coach slapped me in the ear-hole. "You have one job to do until Goodman's back, and that is _get on their wide man like plaid on a shirt_; do you hear me?" He pulled my face mask up to his chin, so his teeth gnashed right in my eyes. "He's big and fast, and I need you to cover him like your life depended on it. We have four downs to close out this game, Rookie, you need to be _on_!" He slapped me on top of the head. "_Do you understand?_"

"Yes, Coach!" He threw me onto the field by my face mask, which thoroughly messed up the way my helmet was sitting on my head. I tried to fix the fit of it as I jogged towards the rest of the defensive unit. The loudspeaker announced my arrival: "_Checking in for Aarondale; number thirty-eight, Micah Ab…Abra-shin_." It figures they wouldn't get my name right.

I heard a single, shrill yell from somewhere off behind our bench. "_Go, Micah! Whoooo!_" Had to be Anna. There was a smattering of half-hearted clapping from a few of the parents in the stands, but nobody was going nuts like Anna was. The band started playing again, and even _she_ ended up getting lost in the brass; apparently it was time for business.

I made it up to the defensive huddle, and what hit me was the sudden realization that I was very much _not_ ready to be here yet. The tackles were panting, hands on hips, jerseys covered in grass marks and bloodstains, arms glistening with sweat. The ends were some of the same, looming mounds of mass that could easily turn me into a pancake. Cap and the other two linebackers looked like superheroes, broad-shouldered and muscular even through their pads. The two safeties and the other corner watched me arrive with the slightest look of disdain on their faces, like they could tell how uncomfortable I was with my helmet on and would actually prefer playing with ten men.

Cap clapped his massive hands together, and we all looked over to him. "Alright, kids," he said loudly, above the noise, "Coach says it's bedtime for these guys, and I'm the Sandman; let's put 'em down!" My brain rifled through the Rolodex of shorthand lingo and picked out "bed time" and "sandman"—a blitz from Cap, the blind side outside linebacker. He called for us to break, and the referee blew his whistle to start the play clock. As I turned to start jogging out to the wide left, Cap grabbed me by the pads. "Rookie!" he shouted, smacking me in the helmet, "hey!" I looked him up and down; he was an unreal specimen of a human being. With a helmet on, he'd be a dead ringer for J.J. Watt if not for the braces on his knees. He bent down over me, so our face masks touched, and spouted commands into my face. "Your receiver's gonna be good, but you're gonna hang around on him like a bad cold, you hear me?" I nodded, and he clapped me on either side of the head. "Just keep him covered until I break into the pocket. You got this, kid! Come on, Rookie!" He pushed me in the chest, lifting me into the air and tossing me backwards. He smacked himself in the helmet, continuing to roar and pump himself up. I took up my spot on the line of scrimmage, and Cap took up his place behind the defensive end, shouting out coverage instructions like we were just running normal pass defense.

My receiver arrived opposite me, and I got to see first hand why Coach had said so many times it would be important for us to keep him quiet. Number fifteen, Burress Jordan; six-feet-three-inches of lean muscle, long arms, and an enormous vertical. He had caught two touchdowns already tonight, so obviously he didn't feel like letting us keep him quiet. He laughed out loud as he lined up across from me. "Are you niggas for real?" He looked to his right, where the rest of my team was standing on the sidelines. "Y'all are gonna put little white boy on me, here?" He clapped his hands. "I am _insulted_, nigga! Little white boy ain't got _shit_ on me!"

The play clock was winding down. Jordan looked across the line of scrimmage. "You think you hot shit, little white boy? Tryin'a play like you's a nigga too?" I took two deep breaths and bit down on my mouth guard. Jordan shook his head, staring straight into my soul. "I'm all over you, little white boy. _All_ over you! You ain't even gon' _breathe_!" He set himself to run. "I'm gone, nigga! You cain't e'n see my _dust_, little white boy!"

"_SET, HUT_!" The snap. Jordan took off, and my brain tuned off everything but the defensive tactic after defensive tactic that had been bashed into my head over the years. I turned and put a body on his Go route, blocking his path and trying to slow him down. He swam over me and cut inside on a Post, and I spun and sprinted after him. They would be attacking my side, seeing as I had just gotten into the game. I _had_ to get back on him; that was the only thing Coach had told me to do. I saw Jordan's hands start to rise up to his chest, ready to catch, and I spun my head to watch the incoming pass.

There was no ball incoming.

Instead, there was a massive pile of bodies at the line of scrimmage, and the crowd was going wild. From the pile, a single figure emerged, smacking his helmet and high-stepping away from the group of players that was beginning to rise around him. The numbers stretched across his massive upper back read proud in gold; fifty-three. _Cap._ He was hollering like a madman, running over to the purple "A" at midfield. He got there, stopped, and thrust his fist into the air with a mighty roar. The band started playing the Aarondale fight song as Cap was surrounded by the other linemen and they celebrated as a group quickly before making their way back to scrimmage. _That must have been it_.

The play clock was running, though, and we had to get back to business. We had to stop two more downs, and I still had to cover Jordan. The big receiver lined up with me again, still running his mouth and cursing at me. "_SET, HUT_!" He dropped a shoulder and turned into a Slant route, to which I just tried my best to keep up and kept my eye on his helmet. It turned, I turned mine, and I saw the ball flying in towards him. Suddenly, I was pitched forward into the ground, my face mask filling up with dirt. Whistles blew, the crowd jeered, and I was picked up by the back of my jersey.

"Nice coverage, Rookie!" Cap smacked me hard on the butt. "He's gonna get PI for that!"

Moments later, the stadium announcer confirmed offensive pass interference on number fifteen. The referee moved the ball back ten yards, and Techuwain was now left with third-and-twenty-three. "Abressian!" I turned to look at Coach, who had just called my name. Tyreese was back up, jogging onto the field. Coach waved frantically. "Sub out! Sub out!" I sprinted off the field as quickly as I could to avoid a penalty, and my world started to slowly reconstruct itself from the bare-bones of football tactics it had been reduced to not moments before.

Coach pounded on the top of my helmet. "Good work, kid, that was good football," he said. Tyreese's re-entry was announced over the loudspeaker. A water boy, one of the middle school kids, appeared next to me and handed me a towel and a squirt bottle. I looked at him, confused for a moment, before taking the items from him slowly; I'd never needed the water boy before. Coach smacked my pads. "Grab some water, Rookie, be ready to go back in if they choose to punt."

"Huh?" I panted, swallowing a mouthful of water.

Coach watched as Techuwain tried to punch their fullback past our nose tackle, getting tackled after a few yards and bringing up fourth down. Coach gave me a push back towards the field. "Go, kid! Goodman can't receive this punt, you have to take it!" The special teams unit began their assembly on the field, and Tyreese jogged off the field with the rest of the defense. I tossed the water bottle and towel and jogged out to where the returner would take the catch. I had to keep the ball in play; there was still enough time for Techuwain to have another drive, I had to try and get us as far away from our end zone as possible.

The ball shot out to the punter, and he launched it into the air. As it flew high into the air, I lost sight of it as it passed through the lights and into the dark, night sky. Taking a few steps back, I started to panic a bit. _Shoot. I can't see it. What if I drop it? Should I call fair catch?_ Then, movement. The ball broke back through the lights on a beeline for my forehead.

I threw up my hands, and cushioned the ball into my chest, holding onto it for dear life. For the first time since the snap, I looked down the field. There were maybe ten bodies barreling towards me at extremely high speed. Before I could react, a Techuwain player wrapped his arms around my chest and drove me into the ground; it felt like my soul was vacating my body. The whistle blew, and the pile of bodies on top of me dissipated. One of my teammates helped me to my feet, and we made our way off the field together as the offense moved in to finish off the game. Coach didn't say anything, but since I didn't turn the ball over, I assumed he was happy with that last play. Another water boy brought me a drink and I unstrapped my helmet and slipped it off my head.

"Rookie!" Cap's voice accompanied a shove in my shoulder. He had his helmet off too, his sandy blonde crew cut dripping with sweat and water he had just poured on it. "Thanks, buddy!"

I raised an eyebrow. "For…?"

He put an arm around my shoulder and turned me to face the stands. "For helping me out!" He stepped up onto a bench and raised his arms in the air; the crowd cheered loudly. He stepped down from the bench and put his arm around me again. "That last sack I had was a single-season record, and _you_ helped me get it!" He started walking slowly down the sideline, and I followed. "If you hadn't covered their target so well, I wouldn't have had time to get to the quarter back."

"Oh, uh…" I paused as we passed by a group of cheerleaders, whom I scanned to see if I could find Anna. When she was nowhere to be seen, I returned my attention to Cap. "Uh, thanks, Cap," I said, "I was just trying to keep up."

Cap thumped me on the chest. "You did more than that, bud; you shut him right up!" He stopped moving, turning us again to face the crowd. He raised his hand, and I tried to track his gaze up through the people. Barely visible between two massive fans was a thing girl with white-blonde hair, sitting timidly near the edge of the stands. Cap waved, and Elsa smiled slightly. She raised her hand, revealing a small, gold supporter's flag with a purple-and-green "A" on it. She wiggled it back and forth almost sarcastically, smirking coyly. Cap laughed, putting a hand to his face and blowing a kiss. Elsa returned the gesture.

Then Cap raised my hand into the air too, like he was announcing me as the winner of a prize fight. Elsa narrowed her eyes, seemingly confused. Cap pointed to me, and I waved up sheepishly. Elsa seemed to finally recognize me, and she smiled back and waved. It was the biggest smile I had ever seen her give me, and I felt my face grow a bit warm. Cap gave me a little push, and the two of us headed back towards the rest of the team.

The offense drove down through three sets of downs, running the clock down to twelve seconds before kicking a field goal. That put Aarondale up by five with just enough time for Techuwain to Hail Mary a pass downfield and hope for the best. The kickoff was caught for a touchback, and Techuwain launched two long passes that ended up coming to naught. The final buzzer sounded, and my teammates erupted into cheers; Aarondale was headed for the finals. The loudspeaker blared out one final message:

"_Final score; Techuwain Aztecs twenty-one, Aarondale Knights twenty-six. Congratulations to the Knights as they advance to the county finals, which will be held in Baker's Bay next Saturday.—_" there was a cheer from the crowd "—_And, a special congratulations to senior captain, Dylan Lynch, whose three sacks in tonight's game helped him set a new record for single-season sacks. Let's hear it for Dylan!_"

Everyone started cheering, and Cap raised his arms and started waving. I smiled, clapping a couple times. The sheer number of people that were flooding down from the stands was astonishing. Looking over them quickly, I made a decision to avoid later crowdedness and head down to the showers now. I slipped past some parents coming down to congratulate their kids and made for the locker room.

"Micah! Micah, wait!" Anna's voice reverberated against the concrete of the tunnel. She was jogging towards me, her pom poms rustling as she approached. She was in her cheer uniform—_Of course she's in her cheer uniform, stupid; she was just cheering your game…_—which consisted of a tiny white skirt and a skintight purple-and-green shirt with a gold "A" in the center of her chest. As she bounced to a stop, I hurriedly closed my gaping mouth and blinked my eyes to stop them from staring at the outline of her figure, as her outfit left little to the imagination. "Good job tonight!" She wrapped me in a hug, but it was short lived. "Pew, you stink," she said letting me go and stepping back with an adorably sour look on her face, "go take a shower!" She turned and started skipping back down the hallway. "I'll be waiting for you!"

I watched her dance away, marveling at how much of a spectator I had just been to that interaction. Just as she was about to exit the tunnel to the locker room, though, Anna turned back to face me. "I _told you_ you were important!" The smile on her face was enormous. "I _told you_!" She spun and scampered away.

I shook my head, a smile creeping across my face. Had I actually done that well? I felt like all I did was run around for six seconds and get tackled once; why should that matter so much?

But…Anna was happy with it.

That had to count for something…

* * *

><p>Anna was waiting for me when I left the locker room. She had put on a fleece jacket, and she was standing with her arms crossed over her chest. <em>She looks cold<em>. Not surprising; that cheer uniform was practically nothing. I pulled my letterman coat out from my bag as I approached.

"Hey, are you cold?" I asked, holding out the coat.

"Oh," she said, surprisedly, "thanks, Micah." I draped the jacket over her shoulders, and she wriggled to put her arms through the sleeves. "These uniforms we have are so not made for what they ask us to wear them in."

"I could probably imagine," I said, putting my glasses on.

Anna looked over my shoulder, and I saw Elsa approaching from across the parking lot. "Hey, sis! Like my new coat?" I laughed.

Elsa smiled. "Very cute; it goes well with the skirt."

"Hey, Elsa," I said, shades of déjà vu from a week ago popping into my brain. I quickly added something on to try and preserve the mood. "I saw you in the stands, earlier. I waved; I don't know if you…uh…saw _me_, but, I mean, I waved to you, and…uh…I think you waved back? So maybe you saw, I don't—"

My horrifically awkward run-on thought was cut short when Elsa wrapped her arms around me quickly. My entire body locked up in complete shock. "You did well tonight, Micah," she said, patting me on the back, "Dylan is really happy that he was able to break the record, and he keeps saying that it was thanks to you." She let go of me, stepping back and smiling. "And, yes, don't worry, I saw you." She turned to Anna. "I'll be at the car, sis. See you in a minute."

"Bye, Elsa!" The older girl strode away, leaving me alone with Anna. Anna leaned around me, watching her sister leave, a big open-mouthed smile stretched across her face. "Um, okay…" she put a hand up to her face. "Micah, your face is completely red!"

"Is it?" I adjusted my glasses, even though they were still perfectly aligned from when I had put them on not a moment ago. My cheeks felt like they were on fire.

Anna giggled. "Has she ever even accidentally _bumped into you_ before?" I shook my head slowly. Anna put her hand on her cheek, her fingers barely poking past the cuff of my letterman jacket. "Wow; she must _really_ be happy! Let's hope Dylan doesn't hear about this!"

"Wh-what? Why?" What would happen if Cap heard about this? Was he that kind of guy to freak out about that sort of thing? I mean, he didn't _strike_ me as that sort of guy, but you never really know with those sorts of people until you push their buttons, and—

"Micah! Calm down, I was just kidding." Anna giggled behind the sleeve of my coat. "I can see your brain flying at a thousand miles per hour; there's practically steam coming out of your ears." She stepped over towards me and gave me a hug too. "Loosen up a bit, okay? Dylan's not going to beat you up because Elsa gave you a hug."

_I sure wish I could loosen up with you this close to me_.

Anna held on to me for a few dozen seconds before rubbing my back and stepping away. "Okay, Micah," she said, starting to withdraw her arms from the sleeves of my jacket, "I gotta get going."

"No, no," I blurted messily. She stopped what she was doing, looking at me with a cocked head. I wheezed a weak laugh. "You, uh…you should keep that on. It's still cold, and I don't think Ca—er, _Dylan_ will be done for a bit; y'know, the record-holder's gotta do…record…stuff…" It was hard to breathe. "I…don't know." I waved my hands frantically. "Just…you…Just keep the jacket on. I can get it back on Monday."

Anna smiled. "You're so funny, Micah." She slid up to me quickly.

My mind emptied itself of any and all semblance of consciousness as Anna's ruby red lips came to rest gently on my cheek.

"You're the best." She stepped past me slowly. "Thanks for letting me borrow your jacket." I felt the whisper of her fingers on my sleeve. "I'll text you tomorrow; I might need help on the history homework."

I couldn't even begin to comprehend the forming of words. I just stood in the parking lot in a daze.

_Good Lord…I must have played like a champion._


	6. Chapter 6

My drawer of sketches was getting out of control. Ever since the night of the semifinal, it had become almost a necessity for me to draw Anna before I could fall asleep. I could practically feel her touch on my cheek every time I saw her in class, or when her name popped up on my phone. Every night I would draw something I thought was special; Anna in a sundress smiling wide with her eyes closed, Anna holding a bouquet of flowers, Anna splashing in a pond, Anna walking happily with a faceless man that just so happened to be about my height. I started playing more music too; lots of the poppy stuff that Anna liked. My mom commented a few times while I was noodling around on how interesting it was that I had started listening to that kind of music. Like any good son, I had told her to lay off and let me do what I want. I was going to do everything in my power to avoid the cardinal sin of any teenage boy: letting your mother find out that you like a girl. I could picture it in my head even at the first inkling of the thought. Every day would become nothing but Mom saying stuff like, "Why don't you have Anna over?" or "I bet Anna would like to—" yada-yada-yada. My life would turn into a big game of "How fast can Mom get her son a date?" Never _ever_ would I declassify that information to Mother Dearest, no matter how sweetly she asked.

I had to move my sketches from my drawer into the corner of my closet, behind a pile of old jackets and pants in a spot that Mom definitely wouldn't find them. I felt sort of bad hiding them the way I did, but I would just tell myself that they were only drawings, and the Annas on them couldn't tell that they were being stuffed in a closet, and it meant nothing important, and I would feel better. They _were_ nothing more than drawings, though my hesitation came from what they were drawings _of_. I was starting to feel like Anna could sense that something was going on, as though a part of her soul was being trapped in each of the sketches and every pair of teal blue eyes that sprung from my pen were portals into my bedroom that she would use to watch me practice guitar or watch me scribble out the next sketch the next night. I never did anything I should be ashamed of; I didn't feel right doing that. I had thought about it before, and I'm not going to pretend like I don't do _that_ every once in a while, but it felt…just…_wrong_ to fantasize her in that way. That's why everything I drew was clean, because she wasn't that type of girl; she was clean and kind and proper and innocent, and it was an insult to her to even think of disrespecting her like that.

The football season ended at the championship game, which we lost to some school from upstate in a tight thirty-one to twenty-eight slug fest. Cap was pretty broken up about it in the immediate aftermath, despite playing the game of his life an adding three more sacks to his résumé, or so Anna said. Within a few days, though, he was back to his old self, and nobody would have been the wiser. He asked for my cell number once the season ended, and every couple nights he would shoot me a text asking how my day had gone. It was very interesting to me that he would go out of his way to speak with me like that, even if it was only a quick text once in a while; I didn't quite know how to proceed or what it meant in the big picture of things. Was he trying to become friends with me? That couldn't really be the case, I told myself—it would be social suicide to hang out with me. Did he want something from me? The only thing, or rather _person_, I could think of that would prove _that_ fantasy to be true was Anna, since I had nothing else in my life with any value other than her; this idea was quickly squashed because of how much time he was spending with his girlfriend and leaving Anna to text me and complain about how Elsa was never around any more. So, he wasn't after Anna. What, then, was his endgame?

The question stumped me all the way into winter break, then school let out for the Christmas holidays. Cap more or less drifted from my mind as I found myself with hours and hours a day that I would devote to lazing around the house, noodling on the guitar, or drawing. I would go do things with Anna on occasion, but it was relatively infrequent. We did simple, silly stuff; go to the movies, go downtown and crawl through McLoughlan's Antiques looking for the oldest thing we could find, we even tried building a snowman once when there was a little bit of a flurry, but it was a fruitless effort. That sounds like an awful lot of time spent together, but in reality it was only two days of a nearly month-long break. Even during the waning days of the fall semester, Anna and I had done little more than text one another. She had been spending a lot of time with other friends she had been making, with I was _totally_ okay with; I couldn't expect her to _actually_ devote all her free time to lame old me. She was, after all, pretty enough to run the school; she needed more loyal subjects than just me.

That's what I told myself, at least.

A few days before Christmas, while my mom was covering a night shift at the hospital, I was sitting in bed strumming away the chorus of "She Will Be Loved" when my phone started to ring—the one that sounded like singing birds reserved for only one person. I accepted the call and raised the phone to my ear. "Hey, Anna!"

"Micah?" Her voice was garbled and broken up by loud noises in the background. She asked again. "Micah, can you hear me?"

I spoke up a bit in the hopes that it would help her to hear better. "Anna, hi! I can hear you fine!"

"Oh, hey, Micah!" She giggled. "We're coming to get you now; we'll be by in, like, five minutes." Obviously my silence wasn't an acceptable reply. She clicked her tongue at me. "Will you be ready or not?"

"R-read—uh..." No words were coming out of my mouth in any particular order. "Wha-what—uh—for, uh, for what? Ready for what?"

"Terri Bryant's party? Didn't you hear about it? Like, everyone is going to be there; I'm having Stuart swing by your house to get you on our way!"

"Party? I didn't uh..." Why in the blue Hell would I be invited to any parties? And who was Terri Bryant? Who was Stuart? I felt a panic begin to set in deep in my chest.

"Mic_uuuuuuuuuuhhh_!" Anna dragged out the final syllable of my name exasperatedly. "Micah, please come? It's going to be so fun! Please?"

My lips flapped noiselessly. "A-anna I didn't—"

"I want you to come! Please? Can you please come to the party with me? We haven't barely seen each other _all_ break; let's go do something together!"

The words came out before they even crossed my mind. "Sure, then. I'll be ready in five."

Anna's voice was so sweet I could practically taste it. "Yaay! Oh, thank you, Micah! We'll be there soon!" I heard some laughter in the background that was quickly muffled by the sound of jostling for the end-call button, then the harsh-toned beep of the line going dead.

"Bye," came my final word, my phone lowering slowly from my face. Then, like a tidal wave, reality crashed down over me. "God almighty..." I was about to go to a party. It was Wednesday night—Christmas Eve's eve's eve's eve—and Anna had just convinced some random guy named Stuart, who was undoubtedly an upperclassmen with a car and also undoubtedly ridiculously handsome, to come to my house and pick me up and drive me to a party hosted by someone I had never met before. That _doesn't_ happen to me. If there was ever a time that I had felt panicked, it was now.

_What should I do?_ I looked down the length of my body at my clothes; jeans, and a _Howl's Moving Castle_ tee. _Should I change clothes? What would I wear? What am I expected to wear? Maybe I should text Anna and ask..._

_No! Wait!_ I leaped off my bed and started tearing through my closet. I threw collared shirt after collared shirt onto my bed in a flurry; anything I owned that was colored complimentary to the shirt I already had in. _Dress cool, but not like you're trying. That's what the cool guys always do. You're a big boy, you can do it yourself. Plus, if you get it right, you might surprise her with how stylish you are._ I pulled on a shirt and sprinted down the hall to my mom's room, making use of her full-length mirror. I was happy with the outfit I had put together; I looked like Junpei Hyūga had walked right off the page of the last chapter of _Kuroko no Basuke_. When I realized how proud that made me feel, though, I sighed heavily. _Things like that are why you don't get invited to parties, you nerd._

There was a honk from out in the driveway, and I shouted that I was coming as I sprinted to the staircase. I hastily threw on my Converse and grabbed my house key off the hook. Locking the door behind me, I scurried down the driveway towards the Chevy sedan that was running. As I approached, a door popped open and a figure emerged from within. "Micah!" it exclaimed, and I immediately deduced who it was, despite the fact that I was blinded by the headlights.

"Hi, Anna." I replied. I passed the range of the headlights, and Anna buzzed up to me and wrapped me in a massive hug.

She squealed. "Ooh, I'm so happy you're coming!" She smelled funny. I mean, she smelled good overall—I wasn't repulsed by her—but there was something extra in the air that was getting my attention. She was dressed up a bit more than I was, but not too much so. She had on a backless black shirt, surprising when you consider how cold it was, and a pair of painted-on blue jeans with sequined patterns on the thighs. Her hair was down, which I liked; in the fading light it shone like copper and it bounced voluminously when she backed away and hopped in place anxiously. "I am so excited! You look great; I love that shirt!"

My face practically combusted right then and there. I pulled at the open buttons of the shirt I had picked. "Oh, uh, you do? That's cool...I mean, like, it's just a shirt I had in my closet—"

"Oh, I was talking mostly about _this_ one." She poked me in the chest, singling out my Miyazaki shirt. "It's an awesome design; it looks like something _you'd_ draw."

I laughed nervously. "Thanks…uh…thank you." I rubbed my head furiously. "I _wish_ I could draw like this, but, I—uh—I mean I do use Miyazaki for inspiration…some…times…"

Anna giggled giving me a little push in the chest. "You're so funny," she said, grabbing a hold of my shirt and pulling me towards the car. "Come on," she urged, "we have to get going!"

I dropped into the one open seat in the back of the sedan, finding myself next to two other girls I had never seen before. Or, maybe I _had_ seen them before, but they were wearing so much makeup their faces were practically concealed. The sort of sneered at me, but not enough for me to feel unwelcome; maybe I _had_ accidentally dressed myself well enough to blend in. The front seats were occupied by another girl in the passenger's seat and a guy—Stuart, no doubt—in the driver's seat. There was loud, thumping dance music playing through the speakers, but nobody said anything. I smiled nervously. The other passengers nodded halfheartedly. _Good enough for me, they're not trying to gut me on the spot_.

"Bottoms up!" Anna's cheery shout was punctuated by a pair of shoes flying past my face. As the rest of Anna's legs appeared in front of me, I realized that she was about to flop into my lap, since there were no open seats left in the back of the car. My entire body tensed up into a statue as she plopped down on top of me; she was much lighter than I imagined she would be. She wrapped an arm around the back of my neck and shut the door behind her, leaning back against the window. "Onward, driver! We have a party to go to!"

"Whatever you say, princess," Stuart said sarcastically, twisting around to look out the rear window so he could back out of my driveway. _I was right, he looks like a movie star._ The other girls in the car chattered excitedly about going to a party and how much fun it was going to be, but I said nothing.

I felt like my entire body was paralyzed. Anna's arm felt like lava burning the back of my neck. As she rocked back and forth, enjoying the music with the other people in the car, her hair would swing into my face, making it hard for me to breathe. Not like I wanted to breathe much in the first place; the car reeked of beer. That's what I had smelled before getting in, _beer_. Anna smelled like beer. The girl next to me smelled like beer. There was a beer can _on the floor between my feet._ Who had drank it; Stuart? _Anna_? _No,_ I thought to myself, _she would never_…Or would she? I had no idea what she did with her "popular" friends; I had heard from some of the other football guys that it was a pretty regular thing for people to get together when parents weren't around and pound a pack of beers, and of course I knew that drinking was crazy at parties, so if Anna was hanging out with the people that did that, then she probably did it too. I didn't know if I liked the thought of her drinking, though. It was uncomfortable to think about. Unlike the way in which I was uncomfortable now, because I could very clearly point towards what was making me feel like my heart was going to explode.

Anna adjusted herself on my lap, her phone in her back pocket digging into my thigh. "Micah, are you excited?" She squeezed around the back of my neck a bit. "Isn't this going to be so much fun?"

I cleared my throat. "Yeah," I chuckled weakly, "it's gonna be great." I felt my glasses begin to slide down the bridge of my nose―I was starting to sweat. I tried to move to push them back up, but both my arms were trapped underneath Anna in some way; my left was being pinned beneath her legs, while my right was pressed up against the door by her back. Her hands, though, were free. _Maybe she'd―_

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than Anna's hand began to rise up towards my face. "_Boop_," she giggled, pushing my glasses back up my nose. The involuntary noise I made sounded like a small animal being strangled. Anna smiled. "Your glasses were falling off," she said sweetly, "I got 'em for you."

"Tha―uh―tha-thank you," I stammered, my throat completely closed off.

Anna put her hand on my forehead. "Geez, you're warm," she said―_And_ you're _making it worse_―before leaning over and tapping Stuart on the shoulder. "Hey, can you turn the heat down a bit? We're roasting back here." I nervously glanced at the other two girls and saw that their makeup had begun to run a bit as they too were sweating. I breathed a minuscule sigh of relief; I wasn't the only one who was fidgety and uncomfortable.

"Sure thing, sweet-heart," Stuart drawled, messing with a couple knobs on the dashboard. "It's only another couple minutes, though, y'all don't have to wait much longer."

"Thank you!" Anna's voice was even more sing-song than usual, and she left her hand on Stuart's shoulder for a moment and rubbed it with her thumb. I swallowed past a lump in my throat. She turned her attention back to me, her eyes flicking between my face and the other two girls. "Oh my God," she said, putting her hand on my chest and stopping my heart, "you all haven't met Micah before!"

"We've seen him around before," one of the girls next to me said, "he's on the football team, right?"

"Yeah! He played in the semifinal a month or so ago!" Anna drummed her fingers on my collarbone.

"Oh, yeah!" The girl in the passenger's seat looked back over her shoulder at us for a second. "Abressian; number thirty-eight? You came in for a couple plays near the end."

I nodded. "Yeah," I said.

Anna pointed towards the girl in the middle seat. "Micah, that's Jen―" She and both nodded at one another "―and over there is Kitty-Anne." Again, the girl and I nodded towards one another, but no words were exchanged. The nods weren't so much greetings as they were a mutual understanding that this interaction would amount to nothing for anybody involved, and the moment we left this car our lives would never cross again. I don't think any of us felt any the worse for it, either.

Anna suddenly belched rather loudly. I might have been the only one to react in surprise; everyone else seemed to be perfectly okay with it. "Geez, babe, you didn't just puke, did you?" Stuart looked ofer his shoulder quickly as he asked the question.

Anna laughed, brushing her hair back out of her face. "No, Stu, I'm fine. This is what I get for letting you drive me around after having a few; you get my insides all shook up."

Stuart shook his head. "Don't puke in my car, babe," he said dismissively. So, my suspicions had been confirmed―Anna had been drinking. She didn't seem drunk, but she'd had enough that Stuart was worried about her throwing up. And was he calling her "babe?" Why was he doing that?

"Ooh!" Anna pointed excitedly out the windshield as Stuart rounded a corner. "Stewy, there it is! That's Terri's place!"

"I know, Anna, I'm the one who drove us here." As Stuart pulled into the driveway, I leaned around Anna to try and get a good look at the house. It was a big house, probably three floors, and it was surrounded by all manner of trucks and cars. There were lights on inside, some windows glowing yellow, others flashing red and blue. The rooms upstairs were either dark or just barely lit by an open door to the hallway; probably bedrooms. Stuart pulled his car to a stop and put it in park. "Everyone out, we're here." The girls next to me threw open their door and practically flopped out of the seat into the driveway. Stuart pocketed his keys and let himself out the driver's side door. "Looks like we're the last ones here," he said slowly.

"Thank you for going to get Micah," Anna said loudly as she wiggled the door open and slipped off my lap. I let the air return to my lungs for a moment before I too climbed out of the back seat. The other girls had already headed up to the front door, and Stuart was standing impatiently at the bottom of the front porch stairs. Anna put her arms on my shoulders and held me at an arm's length. "Micah," she said sternly.

When she didn't continue her thought, I replied; "Yes, Anna?"

She gave me a little shake. "I know you don't usually do parties, but it means a lot that you came with me." She smiled. "Please try to have a good time! Maybe we can go to more parties together in the future!" Before I could do or say anything to let her know I most likely won't want to go to any more parties in the future, she clamped down on my wrist and dragged me up towards the house.

I was not prepared for what was inside.

I had heard from some of the other football guys what parties were like, and I had seen my fair share of movies and TV shows that displayed what a teenage house party would look like, but I wasn't really ready for it to be right in front of me. There were girls everywhere, all of them carrying red plastic cups that I could guess were filled with cheap beer, based on the smell. For every girl there were two or three guys following her around, trying to get her attention. They, too, had drinks in their hands, and a couple of them were even carrying two cups in an attempt to get the girls' attention by bringing them more drink. It was a buzz of noise; there were a few rooms of people just mingling and talking, one room off to the side that was pulsating with trance music and colored lights, and another room filled with couches where couples were getting incredibly well-acquainted before scurrying upstairs for extracurricular activity. I freed myself of Anna's death grip and immediately bee-lined for the safest possible corner I could find; right next to the table where all the snack foods were.

I leaned against the wall nonchalantly, trying my best to appear like I belonged in this place. I don't think I did very well, though; people sneered at me as they passed, hiding what I knew were drunken insults behind the rims of their cups.

I subjected myself to disdain for a minute or two before deciding it might be less painful for me to take a look around the rest of the house and pretend I was on an Open House tour. I first went to the kitchen, where I saw a wide assortment of cheap beer kegs up on top of the counter waiting to be drunk. I found an empty cup and filled it halfway with some drink I had never heard of before. Beer grossed me out; I had tried a bit of my mom's once when I had asked to see what it tasted like, and it was repulsive. I got the cup more to blend in than anything, I had no intention of drinking anything.

I shuffled through the crowd and made my way to the room that was oozing club music. There were a sweaty mass of people inside what would have otherwise been a study room or an office gyrating and grinding against one another in time with the grating electronic rhythms. It looked like a whole lot of effort for no reason, and I left the room rather quickly.

I returned to my spot in the corner, now holding a drink and looking less out of place. Or, rather, the other guests weren't acting like I was as out of place as I had been a minute ago. Comfortable with my increased inconspicuousness, I started looking around for Anna; she _was_, after all, the only reason I came. I had been quick to find safe haven once I got inside the house, but now that I had managed to settle myself down a bit, I started to feel as though I needed to find her again and connect with someone I knew amongst these dozens of strange people that were mingling about all around me.

As I looked out through the people, I realized that I was able to see the living room from where I stood. The living room was where guys and girls were getting _friendly_; there were couples with their hands all over one another, faces smushed together kissing, or bodies mangled up in positions that could not have been comfortable at all. I shook my head slightly. _That's just indecent_, I said to myself. Being in such a public place, getting all up in one another's business like that seemed so unnecessary. Not to mention the parade of people that were funneling up and down the staircase, which I had absorbed enough information about to recognize what it was they were planning on doing.

Then, I thought I saw something among the mass of writhing sexual energy that almost made my cup fall out of my hand.

I paced over towards the living room to get a better look. It was…_Anna_. She was sitting atop a pair of legs—that's all I could see from where I was standing—straddling them like a horse. Her arms were holding on to what I assumed to be a pair of shoulders, and her hair was swinging back and forth slowly as her head rocked in the same way. I pushed past a group of chatting girls to see exactly who it was she was on top of, and my chest felt like it was going to rip apart when I recognized the dark hair and chiseled face of none other than Stuart.

His eyes were closed, and he and Anna were kissing one another furiously.

I was frozen in place. His hands were all over her stomach, her hands were on his face.

My brain was screaming to stop them, but my body refused to move.

He slipped his fingers into her back pockets.

The only thing that came to mind was…_Please…_

_She's not that type of girl._

I turned away from the two of them. I felt…_sick_. I felt like I had just been punched in the gut. I felt like my head was spinning. The house smelled terrible. I had beer in a cup in my hand. I wanted to go home.

…_I want to go home._

I wanted to go home. But Anna had asked me to come. But she was…So why was I here? _Should I go home? _I looked over my shoulder at Anna. She was pushing Stuart's hands away from her chest, entwining their fingers and talking to him in a low tone. He smirked, nodding and allowing her to climb off of his lap. She pulled him to his feet and led him away, towards the staircase.

_She's not…—_they started climbing the stairs—…_that type of…She's not that type of girl._

I had to leave. I wanted to go home. I worked my way to the door. I needed to get out of that house. I wanted to go home. It was cold outside. That image was burned into my mind. She would have been cold, she had been wearing a backless shirt. My face was burning. Did I still have a drink in my hand? I did. I threw it as hard as I could into the door of a nearby truck, sending beer splashing everywhere. I clawed at me cheek, where the ghost of her lips was eating away at my skin. _I want to go home._

I was going to go home.

_How?_ I didn't know where I was; I didn't know where this house was. Where was _my_ house? I couldn't drive; how was I going to get home? I'd have to get a ride. From whom? I pulled out my phone, opening my contacts. It was seriously laughable how many people were in there:

_Anna_. I clicked away almost immediately.

_Mom_. She was at work right now. And, more importantly, there was no way in _Hell_ I was going to let her know I was at a party.

That meant there was only one name left in my contacts list. _Dammit_, I thought to myself. It was my only hope. I took a deep, shaky breath and pressed the call button.

It rang four times before I heard a rustle at the other end. "_Micah? What's up, buddy?_"

I chewed my lip.

"…H-hey, Cap…"

* * *

><p>I didn't want to say anything. Cap—or, rather, <em>Dylan<em> as he'd insisted on being called now that the football season was over—had agreed to come and pick me up almost immediately. When I opened the door to his truck, the first thing he'd said was, "I ain't gonna ask you nothing, bud; let's get you home." I had hesitated getting into the cab, unsure as to how to respond to that. I fully expected to have to explain the whole nine yards to him, but he had been completely silent as I had shut the door and buckled myself in. He started driving, country music low on the radio, just staring out at the road ahead of him. I looked at him for a minute, trying to decide if he was holding off on the polygraph exam or not; his face was pretty blank, he seemed to just be driving. I looked out the window, letting the waves of disappointment crash back over me again.

After what felt like hours of silence, I decided to say something. "Are we almost there?"

Dylan shifted in his seat. "Yep, yep," he said. "Just about ten more minutes." I nodded. He reached over and clicked the radio onto a dead channel, the sound of static filling the cab. "Do you have a favorite radio station?" I turned to look at him, my eyebrows furrowed. He was glancing from me to the road and back. "G'head," he said, motioning to the dials, "Anna's mentioned that you don't like country music that much; what do you like to listen to?"

"Don't—" I held my tongue, taking a breath. I didn't want to talk about Anna. I reached over and spun the radio dials onto the station I put on in the car with Mom; nintey-six-five, "The Turn." It played acoustic music from the early two-thousands, and a lot of it I had learned to play. Sometimes I would listen to it while I sketched; it made me feel relaxed and calm. I needed to feel more calm right now.

Dylan took in air to speak, but paused and ultimately let it go without saying anything. The music floated through the cab for a while, and then I saw the sign for my street. We turned on it, swung into my driveway, and put the truck in park. "Here y'are," Dylan said, "safe and sound." I looked out the windshield, checking to see if Mom had come home yet. She hadn't. Dylan tapped on the steering wheel. "Do you need anything else? I'm happy to help."

I paused, looking at the floor. "Why didn't you ask me anything?"

He smirked. "What do you mean?"

"Aren't you curious at all why I needed a ride?"

"Well, honestly, I am a bit. I knew that you were at a party when I pulled up to get you, but if you wanted to leave I guessed it probably wasn't a good time for you. Unless _you_ wanted to talk about it, I can go without knowing, though; I ain't gonna make you say anything unless you want to." I must have looked confused. He turned is body towards me. "Do you _want_ to tell me anything?"

"No." The word came out almost immediately.

He nodded slowly. "Then don't. I'm not going to make you."

I looked at him for a minute. Huffing, I turned and opened the door. "Thanks for the ride," I said briefly, dropping out of the cab.

Dylan put his truck in reverse. "Merry Christmas, Micah," he said, "I'll talk to you soon." I shut the door behind me, and he started backing out of the driveway. As he reached the street and took off, I shook my head and started back up the stairs. I…appreciated that he hadn't asked about why I needed a ride. It felt good to not have to explain anything to anyone, I could just keep it all inside. It was almost like Dylan…_understood me_. I don't think there was really anyone who understood me. _He gets me more than…Well…Maybe._

I made my way up to my room and kicked off my shoes, flopping into bed and picking up my guitar again. I picked at the strings, but I didn't feel any music in my fingers. I felt empty, hollow. What did I mean to her? Why did she do one thing and act another way? Did she bring me along to make me see _that_? It didn't make any—

*_ring-ring_*

*_ring-ring_*

I pulled my phone out of my pocket…

Slowly, I placed my guitar on the floor next to my bed.

*_beep_*

"_Micah? Micah, where are you?_"

The music in the background was oppressively loud. "Anna, I—"

"_I'm looking all over for you, I can't find you! Did you _leave_?_"

I took a deep breath. "Yeah, I did."

"_You _what_?_" Her voice was shrill through the thumping background noise. "_Micah, are you serious?_"

My heartbeat increased. "Anna, I didn't—I mean…"

"_You didn't what, hmm?_"

"I didn't…want to stay. I saw…" I bit my lip. "I saw all I needed."

"_I thought we were going to come to this party _together, _Micah._ _Where are you now?_"

"I mean, Anna, I got a ride home. I'm in my room."

Her end was wordless for a long time. "_I thought we agreed to come together to this party, and you just up and left._"

"Anna, you were…"

"_I was what? _I _didn't leave._"

"If we were supposed to be going together, why weren't you doing party stuff with me?"

"_Micah, I wasn't going to _babysit _you. You're a big boy, you can go to a party without me holding your hand the whole time;_ _I have a boyfriend to spend time with too._"

I nearly dropped my phone. "B—a boyf-friend? Since when?"

"_Since after the state final? Stuart asked me out that next Monday?_"

"That guy that drove? I'd never met—"

"_Stuart is _on_ the football team, Micah. You're telling me you've never met him?_"

I didn't have anything to say to that.

"…_Micah, why did you leave?_"

"I-I—"

"_You know, I thought you would have at least _tried_ to stick around; that's what friends do, Micah._"

"Anna, you—"

"_What? Tried to spend time with you? Did something nice for you? You wouldn't have even heard about this party without me, and I thought you might have had some fun. Apparently I shouldn't try to do nice things for you any more._"

I felt my blood start to boil, my heart was pounding out of my chest. "Anna…"

"_If you can't tell me why you left, I'm hanging up._"

I took two deep breaths. The words wouldn't come.

"_Anything to say?_"

I shook my head silently.

"…_Fine. I guess we're not the friends I_ _thought we were. Goodbye, Micah._"

*_click*_

I took my phone away from my face, watching the time continue to roll along on the call. It grew higher and higher, the cackle of the dead line blaring from the speakers mockingly. Her words echoed over and over in my head.

_I guess we're not the friends I_ _thought we were._

I remembered the day she showed up in middle school, remembered me right away, and asked me to sit with her at lunch.

_I guess we're not the friends I_ _thought we were._

I remembered when she and I spent the afternoon in my room singing Billy Joel.

_I guess we're not friends._

I remembered how excited she had been for me when I had gotten into the art club.

_We're not friends._

My face burned where she had kissed me that night, after the football game.

_Goodbye, Micah._

I grit my teeth hard. "You don't mean it." I spiked my phone off the mattress, sending it careening across my room. "You're drunk, you don't mean it!"

"Who's drunk?" My heart practically leaped through my eyes when I heard another voice sound from the corner of my room. I looked to the source, and saw Mom standing in the doorway.

I smacked my mattress, flopping back onto my pillows. "Nobody, Mom. I was just talking to myself."

"Who were you on the phone with?"

"_Nobody_, Mom. I was just talking on the phone."

She crossed her arms. "Okay, Micah, calm down a bit. I was just curious." She looked around my room quickly. "It's late, sweetie, you should go to bed." She stepped out of my room slowly. "Good night, honey."

"'Night, Mom." I put my hands on my face.

Mom leaned back into the door. "If you need anything, just ask; okay?"

"_Goodnight_, Mom!" She sighed, and I heard her shuffle away down the hall to her room. I sat up, pushing my guitar away. I had to draw something. I got up and slammed my door, storming into my closet and withdrawing my sketchpad and jumping onto my futon. My pen hit the paper, and everything I hadn't been able to say spewed out. My liberation was soon to be realized.

* * *

><p>Anna was dancing away into the distance, looking out at what lie before her. She reached her hand out for what stood in her path: a gigantic, black figure that loomed overhead. It was a twisted figure, with long, claw-like hands and a haunting, monstrous face. It reached for Anna, laughing as she tried to meet it halfway. Anna's other hand—the one she was not giving to the monster—was out behind her, casting away the item it had been carrying. It was a sheet of paper with a heart drawn on it, ripped to shreds and the pieces fluttering away in the wind.<p>

Beneath the image, there was a single word:

_Fine_…

* * *

><p>*<em>Knock knock<em>*

I licked my lips. From the other side of the door I heard rustling. "Huh? Who's there?"

Slowly, I creaked the door open. Mom put up her hand to shield her eyes from the hallway light. "Sorry," I said weakly, my throat still clenched shut from the tears that had been running until just recently, "were you asleep?" _Stupid question_.

Mom looked at her alarm clock. "Micah, it's nearly three in the morning; is everything okay?" She threw her sheets off herself and made to stand up.

"Don't; Mom…" I held up my arms, showing her that I wanted her to stay in bed.

Her shoulders slumped. "Micah, what's wrong?"

I shook my head, taking a deep breath. "I…went to a…um…I went to a party earlier…like…earlier tonight." Mom blinked. "I mean…I got, like, invited to go, so I…um…well, I got a ride there, and, like…um…I got a cup of…something…but, like, I didn't, y'know, drink it. I just, like…held it. You know what I mean?" She blinked again. "Um," I stuttered, "so…yeah, I was, like, holding a cup at the party and, like…I dunno…it was—it was dumb; the party was dumb. I, like, was there for like…I dunno. I was only there for, like, ten minutes or something. I didn't even, like, _do_ anything; I was there for like ten minutes, and I called someone for a ride and came home."

Mom sighed. "Oh, honey." She stood up, walking to the door and pulling me in for a hug. "Thank you for telling me that, Micah."

I took a deep breath. "Am I in trouble?"

She laughed, and I pulled away in surprise. She was smiling. "No, Micah, you're not in trouble." She ran her fingers through my hair. "I'd prefer you not go to parties with illegal drinking, but I'm not mad at you." She kissed me on the forehead. "Now that you know that, though, I _will_ be a little more harsh if I find out you've gone to any more parties…"

I scoffed. "Don't worry, Mom, that's not gonna happen."

She smirked. "Good, I'm glad." She rubbed my shoulders. "Okay, honey, you need to go to sleep." She let me go and walked back over to her bed. "And _I _need to go to bed too; I had a busy day today and I'm pretty tired."

I stood in the doorway for a moment. "Mom?"

"Yes, Micah?"

"Can we go Christmas shopping tomorrow? I want to…um…spend some time with you."

She looked surprised. "Oh? Sure, honey, we can go!" She lifted her legs up and pulled the sheets over herself. "Do you want to text Anna in the morn—"

"_No!_" Mom's surprise grew even greater at the force and explosiveness of my refusal. I rubbed my forehead. "Sorry, I…I just, um…I want it…I want to go with _you_ tomorrow." I sighed quickly. "_Just_ you."

Mom waited a second or two before replying. "Okay, _just_ us."

"Thanks, Mom." I stepped back from the door and began to shut it.

"Micah?" I poked my head back into the room. Mom was leaning over, her face visible in the beam of hallway light cutting through the darkness. "You know that if there's something on your mind, you can tell me." She raised her eyebrows. "You can tell me."

I nodded slowly. "Not…now." I bit my tongue. _Too much; you said too much_. I pulled my head back from the door. "'Night, Mom; I'll see you in the morning." I shut the door before she could ask me another question.

I walked back to my room, entering to the picture I had drawn staring up at me tauntingly on my bedspread. I stuffed it in my closet, dressing down and climbing into bed.

_Fine. I guess we're not the friends I_ _thought we were._

I shut my eyes and tried to forget.

_Goodbye, Micah._

I was never going to forget.


	7. Chapter 7

Have you ever been totally alone? And I don't mean the type of "alone" where your friends are just in a different place than you, I mean when you don't _have_ any friends.

Newsflash: it sucks major balls.

I kept drawing, but it wasn't anything constructive. I didn't draw _her_ either; I wanted nothing to do with _her_ any more. _She_ would text me a lot in the days that followed the party fiasco; "_Can we talk?_" "_Can you answer me?_" "_What's going on?_" Every one of them came through, it made me want less to do with _her_. It was like she was going to try and pretend nothing happened. So if _she_ could pretend she had done nothing wrong, _I_ could pretend _she_ wasn't sending my anything. That seemed fair to me.

New Year's came and went, and classes started up again. I got a new schedule, since our electives changed at the mid-year, and I wasn't in _her_ history class any more. That made it plenty easy to avoid her during the day. I would see her around the halls, but she was always draped all over _him_ or surrounded by Barbie dolls or looking like she didn't remember what she did. It made it very easy for me to slip by, unnoticed. I was meant to blend into the woodwork, anyways. After all, who was I in the high school food chain? I was the bottom of the barrel, glasses-wearing art club freak. If you were to cast me more than a passing glance, you'd be swallowed whole by the apex predators, and I can't name many people who would be willing to take that risk. So I was doing everyone a favor; I was staying invisible.

I was so invisible that I hardly noticed how quickly freshman year ended. My rhythm of school-homework-Reddit-guitar-sketching-bed turned each day into less than a blink of an eye. I entered a few pieces I had worked on to a competition through the art club, and I managed to take second place in pencil sketching. That was a nice boost of confidence in me to know that I was indeed good at something, even if that something wasn't important to my peers. I went into the summer with a feverish desire to draw more, to get better with my sketching, to place first in the next competition and get more attention. I worked on a freehanded portrait through the summer months and sent it to a magazine competition, and it ended up being featured in the next publication. Mom was overjoyed, since lots of her nurse friends at the hospital subscribed to the magazine and she kept getting compliments on how talented her son is. I could care less than what hospital ladies thought about my drawing, I wanted to see it printed in magazines and up on walls and with ribbons on it. It was a way to be recognized for something that didn't have anything to do with _her_ any more.

Summer was over, and I went back to school for my sophomore year. I drew a lot more, entering more contests in magazines and winning more recognition. A couple people started to mention my submissions in the hall between classes, but it wasn't anything more than "I saw your drawing in the last issue." No comments on the quality, no thoughts on what the piece made them think of, just "I saw it" and walking away. But, it was more than I had been exposed to my freshman year, which sort of made me _not_ hate waking up in the morning knowing I ran the risk of seeing _her_ again.

It was at this point I realized it was slightly childish that I was still refusing to call Anna by her first name, opting instead to use "_her_" for most of the spring and through the summer. Back to classes in the fall, though, I worked her name back into my vocabulary. I got a few more minutes on the field with the football team during that fall, seeing as one of our senior corners was gone from last year and there were only sophomores left. Goodman was obviously starting, but the other corner slot was open and the other three of us were rotated through every drive. When I was in, I could hear a single voice calling out above the rest: "_Let's go, Micah!_" It was Anna, every time. She was still on the cheer squad, and because of that she was at every game. She was the only one to cheer for me while I played, but then after the games when I would leave the locker room she wouldn't pay attention to me. The dichotomy there was painfully representative of our relationship in that moment in time.

While I hadn't spoken _with_ Anna in nearly a full year, I had most certainly _heard_ plenty about her. My invisible-man status on campus left me as a fly on the wall for many a conversation. Anna and Stuart had broken up and gotten back together twice over the summer, but in the middle of football season the separated again and she got together with another one of the guys on the team; I was witness to a couple shoving matches in the locker room before practice between Stuart and this new boy. That new relationship had only been a fling, and come the end of the season she had broken up with him as well and all the stories I heard about her were from people she had gone to parties with. From the sounds of things—although it was all taken with a grain of salt, since the people recounting them also confessed to being incredibly drunk—Anna held her liquor well and was always the life of the party.

I chose to infer my own definition of what it meant to be the "life of the party."

Christmas Break came again, and I had a small celebration with Mom and her brother. Holidays had always been tough since Dad left when I was still in elementary school, but Mom tried hard to make the best of it for my sake. I always felt terrible the day afterwards, when it finally hit me exactly how much Mom sacrificed for me to have a good day and forget about the fact that Dad left. Her brother, Ike, had flown in from Seattle for the first time in a few years, so it was enjoyable to see him again. His question as to if I had found myself a girlfriend yet, though, wasn't that enjoyable. Because it opened up an opportunity for my mother to slip in a comment about Anna, and it completely soured my mood for the next couple hours; an unfair turn of events for Ike, whose time with us was limited as it already stood. Overall though, the experience was great and I was sad to see Ike go home so soon.

What followed, though, was nothing short of a full-out investigation. My mother, bless her heart, had finally caught on that Anna hadn't been over in ages, and was determined to figure out why that might be the case. Daily questions, trying to peer over my shoulder when I was on my phone, not leaving school right away when she picked me up and conspicuously searching the throngs of students for the auburn hair she had grown so accustomed to seeing alongside me for years. It was irritating, it felt like my whole existence was being reduced to a tool to let my mom see Anna, while I very much felt like I could get along without her—that is, if the past year was any indicator of anything.

So I went a year without speaking to Anna in any capacity. I would ignore her texts, send her calls to voicemail, and pass by her in the halls like the ghost I was supposed to be. In the early stages, the texts came pretty frequently, but as the months went by they became more spread out. Eventually, by mid-July, they had stopped coming. Once school started back up, and football season got underway, I would get one maybe once every couple weeks, then I got one on Christmas Day, and one on New Year's eve at the turn of the year. Winter turned into spring with surprising speed, and the time came for my birthday. It was a big day, I was turning sixteen and that meant I could get my driver's license. I passed the initial practical test and received my learner's permit, and I drove back home from the registry to get some practice under my belt. Uncle Ike had dropped a bit of money on Mom to buy me a real beater of a car as his gift for my big birthday bash, and I came home to it in the driveway.

So now I was alone _and_ mobile, which meant I spent a lot of time in town. I took my sketchbooks to this local coffee place, Sweaty Beans, and sat in the corner and drew portraits of people. I was good at _anime_-style caricatures, but I wanted to work on developing more realism in my art in order to try and create a more believable image. So I would spend hours every Saturday in Sweaty's, from the moment they opened until just before dinner, letting a cup of coffee grow cold on the table next to me as I sketched the people that rolled through getting their drinks and having their dates and trying to look like they were writing the next great American blog post. I got to know the baristas pretty well; Matyas was a recent college graduate from Hungary that had been unfortunate enough to break down in Aarondale, and he worked with Karyn the Cat Lady—named so because of one time she brought her cat to work with her—on Saturday mornings through noon. Then noon to seven was covered by local boy Paul, who went to high school with me, and his cousin Lilly, who had just graduated from Yale University School of Art with a degree in Photography. I guess, if you were to ask, I would call these baristas my friends; if by friends you mean they let me sketch them sometimes and realized quicker than most people that I didn't like to be talked to. I _did_ chat with them time and again, and I _did_ get to know them somewhat, so it wasn't as though I was a crab apple about them doing their jobs. I actually liked Sweaty's a whole lot; I came in and noodled on my guitar during open mic hours a few times too, so it wasn't as though I just sat in the corner like a serial killer and drew people. And the people that came through regularly started to catch on and talk to me too, about a piece they'd seen in a magazine or online; come the middle of June, as school was ending, I wouldn't usually start sketching until around noon when the regulars had rolled out and I could see the plethora of random or part-time Sweat-ers that funneled through the increasingly popular coffee spot. Management had even started commissioning sketches of different parts of the store from me, and the walls slowly began to fill with framed pencil drawings from my sketch pad, garnering even more attention from the people that came to visit. I was liking the attention my art was getting.

* * *

><p>It was the end of June, and school was over for the summer. I had gone a full eighteen months without so much as saying a single word to Anna, nearly three months without her sending me a text,<p>

and almost ten weeks without thinking about her. On the first Saturday morning of my official summer vacation, I woke up bright and early with Mom as she was preparing to go to work and put together my things to go to Sweaty's. I packed a backpack with sketchbooks and pencils, my iPad, and my headphones. I pocketed my wallet, stuffed chargers for my phone and tablet into the side pockets of my bag, and started to pack my guitar. It wasn't an open mic, but I promised Karyn that I'd let her listen to me play today, since she hadn't been able to hear me at any of the open mic shows before. Normally, Sweaty's didn't allow musicians during normal business hours unless there was open mic, but I had gotten special clearance from the boss to put on a little concert for the regulars this morning.

There was a knock on my door. I turned to see Mom standing in the threshold, wearing her favorite pink scrubs with the flower on the chest. "Are you going to Sweaty's?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yeah," I said, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and lifting my guitar case. "Why, do you need something?"

She shook her head. "No, I was just wondering." She bit her lower lip.

I furrowed my brow. "Mom?"

She puffed some air out of her nose. "It's just…I have…I have plans tonight, so…well, I wanted to know if you were going so I'd know when you'd be home; if you're planning on staying late, I'll have to leave some money out for pizza or Chinese or something, that way you won't go hun—"

"Plans?" I raised an eyebrow at her. "You never have plans, Mom." I smiled. "Awesome! What's the occasion?"

Mom tensed up. "Nothing special, just dinner."

"Who with? The girls again?"

She shook her head, crossing her arms. "Doctor Caldwell, from anesthesiology." I must have looked confused, because Mom's face grew panicked. "It's not…well, it's _kind of_ a date, Micah; I can't lie about that. He asked me if I wanted to go for Thai tonight and I said yes."

I took a few beats to process what it was that Mom was telling me. "Okay," I said, "I guess that's fine. I mean…" I took a step past her and started walking downstairs. "Are you looking for, like, my permission or something?"

"No, Micah, I was just keeping you informed." We entered the kitchen and I put down my guitar case by the garage door. Mom leaned against the counter. "I didn't know what you would think about me trying to put myself out there again, so I wanted you to know that I was going to start trying to date again."

I wrinkled my nose. "Don't tell me you're 'putting yourself out there,' Mom."

Her eyes practically rolled to the floor. "Micah, that's not what I meant." I gave her a halfhearted smile to show that I hadn't been serious. She gestured with her hands, almost pleading. "I need to know if you're okay with this, honey; I don't want to make you upset or uncomfortable."

I shrugged. "Honestly, mom, if you want to try dating again I'm not going to stop you. It's going to be awkward no matter what you say or do about it, so I guess I'd be fine to roll with whatever comes."

Mom smiled. "Okay, Micah," she said, "as long as that's what you really think."

"But," I interjected, causing Mom to freeze in place. I smirked, ironically so. "I do have to ask you something."

"What?"

I sighed. "It's just…after Dad, how can you ever want to be with a man again?"

Mom was silent for a long time. She stalked across the kitchen to me, taking my hands in hers and looking at them softly. "I guess," she began, "I just feel like I want to try again, get it right this time." She looked me in the eye. "And not that _you_ were some kind of mistake I made; you're _my_ son, and I would _die_ for you. I think that, even if you've been hurt, the best way to move on is to use the past to shape your future." She craned her neck up and kissed me on the forehead. "What happened what your Dad hurt me deeply, and it hurt you too. That's why I wanted to ask, because I know I'm not the only one whose world would be changing. I wanted to know if you would be willing to shape a new future with me."

I sighed. "Mom…" I gave her a hug. "I love you, Mom."

"Thank you, baby," she replied, "I'll love you forever, my sweetie boy."

I smiled. "Don't say that in public," I joked, "you'll ruin my street cred."

Mom pulled out of the hug and gave me a death glare. "I'll call you my sweetie boy wherever I want, young man; I am your _mother_!"

I kissed her on the cheek and picked up my guitar from the floor, flinging open the garage door. "I'll be back after five, so if you're leaving earlier or at that time, some pizza money would be appreciated." I grinned as the door began to shut behind me. "Have fun on your date, Mom," I said quickly.

"Bye, honey," she said, waving.

"And," I added, just as the door was closing, "don't worry about ruining my street cred; I don't have any to ruin." I winked at her when she smiled, and the door closed in front of my face.

_Good for her_, I thought as I loaded up my car. _It's been quite a few years, I guess; maybe it _is _time for her to try dating again_.

And I hadn't lied to her; I was happy to hear that from her.

* * *

><p>Sweaty's was busy today, which was probably because word had gotten around that I was going to be playing guitar this morning. I walked in and went to my usual seat in the corner, the one within easy reach of a wall outlet, and set my backpack on the table. I unclipped my guitar case and lifted the lid open, checking to see if everything was still in order from when I had packed it that morning. I heard footsteps behind me, and I turned to see Matyas approaching with a mug in his hand. "Good morning, Micah," he said cheerfully in his thick Hungarian accent, "here is the latte for you."<p>

"Thanks, Matty," I said, "good to see you today." I panned my eyes around the shop quickly, checking to see who was there. Mr. Geoffrey was in the corner wearing his usual worn ball cap and eating the buttered bagel he always got, and his wife sat next to him with a newspaper opened on the table, staring down at it through the tiny glasses that rested on the tip of her nose. There was also Marsh, Toby, Yvette, Bryce, Mrs. Thompkinsson, and Kenny Davis; apparently the whole gang had turned out bright and early for me. I looked back to Matyas. "What's the plan, dude? Do I just go whenever I'm ready?"

Matyas nodded. "Play as you like, we will stay in business as usual." He smiled. "Karyn has excitement for hearing you play; I have been saying things to make you good to her."

I smirked, "Good to hear, Matt. I'll get going in a minute or two." We bumped fists and he made his way back behind the counter. I unpacked my bag, setting my sketchbooks on the table and pulling out my iPad to tune up. Once it was plugged into the wall, I fired up my guitar tuner and plucked on the strings until they were perfect. Sliding my chair away from the table to give the neck of my guitar some room, I cranked out a couple chords to get everyone's attention. When a decent hush fell over the shop, I spoke up quickly. "Yea, so…I'm just gonna noodle around for a while. You can chat or whatever, it doesn't matter; I'm not singing today. Just to, like, let you know what's happening. Hope you like it."

I started playing something simple: "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison. Some of the people bobbed their head in time with the music, others kept going with their business. I transitioned into "She Will Be Loved," and the younger patrons got excited. I slowed everything down with some Billy Joel, and a murmur passed through the older patrons. Then I played one of _my_ favorites, "Be the light," and everyone sort of settled into a calm rhythm of chatting and drinking coffee that was not unlike anything you would have seen any other Saturday morning. It was then I realized that I had become ambiance rather than a performer, and my fingers came to life. I free-styled for a little over an hour and a half, mixed in another handful of songs from memory, then opened up for requests.

I got a lot of pop requests, most of which I was able to find on my iPad, and I played for at least another hour before announcing that I would be packing up for the day. I got some sustained applause as I closed my guitar case and took a drink of the latte that Matyas had brought me. The regulars began to trickle out, and I checked my phone to see if I had gotten any calls or messages; predictably, there was nothing. I pulled out my wallet and started walking to the counter, ready to pay for my drink and also buy something to eat. Karyn lauded my efforts as I handed her the money. "I had _no_ idea you were so talented," she exclaimed, "thank you so much for coming in to play for us today!"

I smiled, taking my change and pocketing the coins. "It's no trouble, honestly; I like playing guitar. _I_ should be thanking _you_, or more like your boss, for letting me play during business hours."

Karyn waved her hand. "Don't be silly, sweetie, I'm sure he'd be fine with you playing here any time. Lord knows we'd love to hear more of you."

"Yea, you're really good; I wish I could hear you play more often, too."

The voice that floated up from behind me sent a chill down my spine. Slowly, I turned around to confirm what it was that I was thinking. The grey tank top shirt and daisy dukes, tan leather sandals, and oversize sunglasses hung from the front of the neckline. Her red hair, straightened and flowing down her back. She smiled shyly, her freckles wrinkling as her nose crinkled up. Matyas appeared at the counter, holding up a drink. "Ice cappuccino for Anna?"

She reached her hand out and took it from him. My tongue was firmly clamped between my teeth. I didn't know she was here today, I didn't think she would have known that I was going to be here today. Did she even like coffee? Watched silently as she raised the straw to her lips and took a sip. "I liked that song you did near the end," she said, "before people started asking you to play stuff for them. The Queen one." She was talking about "Who Wants to Live Forever;" I had taught it to myself over the last Christmas break. She crossed her legs over, tapping the floor with the point of her toe. "But, yea, I'd love to hear you play more some time. What do you think?"

I didn't have any words for her. She blinked a couple times, and I watched as the life in her eyes began to grow dull. Matyas slid my toasted english muffin over the counter for me. I took it slowly, picking at the butcher paper it was wrapped in. I kept remembering that phone call from that night after the party; _Fine, I guess we're not the friends I thought we were. Goodbye, Micah_. I shook my head slightly. I couldn't forget that she'd said those words to me, and I _definitely_ couldn't forget what had happened at the party. I remembered what all her text had invariably said; _Can we talk?_ I started to back away from her, back towards my sketchbook. I could throw the pages up in front of my face and disappear then, if I could just get back—

"Micah…" She reached out for me, her mouth dropping into a frown. "Micah, wait."

"Stop!" The shop grew quiet at the sound of my voice. I could see out of the corner of my eye that the other patrons were staring at us. My face started burning red. I took a deep, shaky breath. "Stop, please." She raised an eyebrow at me. She almost seemed to be patronizing me. I grit my teeth. "It's not that simple," I said.

"Micah…"

"It's not simple," I repeated, "not everything is that simple." I backed away further. "It's not that simple."

Anna's shoulders dropped. She took a step back as well. She took in a breath to speak, but let it out heavily. She spun on her heel and stomped out of the shop, the bells on the door tinkling as it shut on her heel.

I didn't remember sitting down again, nor did I remember picking up a pencil and starting to sketch. But then, suddenly, there I was. I blinked quickly, trying to acclimate to the situation I had just arrived in, and looked down at my sketchpad. I had already perfectly replicated the look on Anna's face as she turned to leave not a moment ago. "For God's sake," I muttered to myself furiously. My hand moved to crumple the paper into a pellet of garbage, but something in my heart stopped me.

I was curious. I wanted to see where this sketch was going.

I plugged my headphones into my iPad and opened my atmospheric music playlist. I set myself in my chair, shut my eyes, and took a deep breath.

* * *

><p>Anna held her arms out in front of her, reaching for the viewer. Her hair billowed wildly around her face, and the fabric of her clothes was being similarly blustered. There were black hands reaching out and smothering her, enveloping her, dragging her down into an inky blackness that spread endlessly by her feet. Her hands were glowing with light, and between them floated small pieces of paper, decorated with a heart, that had been ripped to shreds.<p>

Beneath it, the following was written: _Myself for your pieces_

* * *

><p>An alert tone rang in my ears, disrupting the comfort of the rainforest-inspired track I had been enjoying as I finished up with the shading of my sketch. My pocket buzzed as well, meaning someone had just sent me an iMessage. My finger instinctively hit the corner of the screen, opening the Message app and revealing who it was from.<p>

_**[1:25PM] Anna:**__ I thought a lot about what to say to you after what happened this morning. I don't know what's going on, I don't know why you said what you did, but I'm sick of this. I'm sick of not talking to you any more. I've been sick of it since last year, and then this whole school year went by and nothing changed. It's not fair of you to ignore me like that. It's not fair to leave me in the dark._

_I don't know what's wrong with you, I don't know what happened, I don't know what to do about it. I've been losing sleep over it for a very long time now. Was it something I did? Was it something I said? Is there something you need me to know? Is there something I can do for you? What's wrong, Micah?_

_I guess you're going to ignore this too, so at this point it's more for me than it is to try and tell you something. I hate this, Micah. You're my best friend, you've always been my best friend, and you always will be my best friend. I'm not going to keep my anger inside any more, today was the final straw. If you don't want to be friends any more, just keep doing what you're doing and have a nice life. Just know that I'm literally crying right now typing this because I'm thinking about what if you decide not to reply. I'm hurting, Micah, and you must be too. All I want it to know why. — Anna 3_

I read the message three times. I sat back and thought about it. Something Mom had said this morning floated through my mind. "_The best way to move on is to use the past to shape your future._" That was why Mom was going on a date with Doctor Caldwell tonight, because she was going to use what she learned from Dad to make the rest of her life a life she could be happy with. Her past couldn't control her any more. Why couldn't I do that? Why couldn't I make what I wanted out of this broken friendship I had with Anna. _I'm hurting, Micah_…I most certainly hurt too. Dad had hurt Mom, but she was moving on from it. What was stopping me from doing that too?

Then, I typed a single phrase:

_**[1:40PM] Me: **__Don't go_

I pulled out my phone and opened my contacts. I needed to call Mom, explain to her—

_**[1:40PM] Anna:**__ What does that mean? Do you want to try to talk about it? Where do we go from here?_

I took a deep breath.

_**[1:42PM] Me:**__ I don't know. I don't want you to go._

_**[1:43PM] Anna:**__ Micah, that's not as helpful as you might think it would be. Just because I want to hear from you doesn't mean you can just throw words at me and think it will solve everything._

_**[1:45PM] Me:**__ I don't know what I want right now. The only thing I can think is that I don't want you to go away. Can I text you about it later?_

There was a _long_ pause that followed. The "typing" icon popped up and disappeared repeatedly over and over again.

_**[1:52PM] Anna:**__ I want to talk to you on the phone or in person. Text me later and tell me when would work best for you to meet somewhere and talk._

I breathed out, not realizing until then that I hadn't breathed in a while.

_**[1:52PM] Me:**__ Okay_

I closed the Messenger app. I needed to figure out what shape I wanted my future to have, and I needed to figure it out soon.

I finished dialing Mom's number and punched the call button. It rang through to voicemail, and I hung up without leaving a message. Was Mom really the one to talk to about this? Not on the same day as her first date in almost twenty years. I needed someone to bounce thoughts off of, someone who could listen and let me process out loud and tell me if I was making a good choice. The baristas? No, that would be a horrible idea; they didn't know anything about me other than my art and my music. And, they didn't know Anna. That was really the most important part, an ability to know how Anna might respond to what I have to say. Maybe someone who has had to do something like this before, who's been working on a relationship for a long time…

_Wait…that's perfect._ I opened my contacts again and scrolled down to the number that had jumped into my head.

"Dylan? Hey, it's Micah. Listen, uh…are you busy right now? Can you meet me at Sweaty Beans? I have something really important I need you to help me with…"


End file.
